Courtesy of ESPN/Rise, an interview with St. Mary's Berkeley hurdler, Trinity Wilson:
http://rise.espn.go.com/track-and-xc/blogs/interval-sessions/2010/02/Trinity-Wilson.aspx
Check out this great collection of pictures from today's races at the following link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/liberaldem537/2009FootLockerNationalCrossCountryChampionships#
In less than two years on the CCS running scene, Evergreen Valley sophomore Samantha Garcia has achieved a great deal. She qualified for the cross country state meet in 2008 with a ninth place finish at the CCS championships. During track season, Garcia broke out with a 11:14.32 PR in the 3200m, good enough for the tenth best time in the section in 2009, in addition to being BVAL champion and a CCS finalist in the eight lap event. So far this cross country season, she has proved herself as one of the best in the CCS, with a third place finish at both the Earlybird and Artichoke Invitationals. Garcia recently broke the Evergreen Valley school record at their home course, Montgomery Hill, with a time of 18:26 over 2.74 miles.
The following interview was conducted by Evergreen Valley alum Kevin Liao.
In middle school, I won county sectionals in the seventh grade. In eighth grade I almost won again, but came in second by inches, and learned an important lesson (like not looking behind you near the finish). I gained confidence that I was a very competitive runner and if I continued to improve could also compete at the high school level.
I’ve participated in the following sports: swimming, basketball, and soccer. I have been on a Cabana league swim team since I was six years old, which is a lot of fun. I played basketball both years in Jr. High, but don’t play anymore. I love soccer the best but may have to stop playing because possible injuries would not allow me to run.
Having never participated in track, I was surprised how well I did. I discovered that I liked track. I enjoy the competition. The combination of great coaching and well designed workouts has made me a better runner. Along with the more experienced senior runners on the team who have given me tips and support throughout cross country and track.
My soccer coach, Terry, encouraged me to pursue my running career. She offered words of wisdom, because she too was a runner in high school. Coach Jim Sena, my cross country coach, is an amazing coach. He knows what he is talking about. Having been a CCS Cross Country Champion, he brings experience and he shares this with his runners. (Interviewer’s note: Sena was CCS small schools champion in 1970 while running for James Lick) His style of coaching is perfect for me. He and I have a great relationship. I have lots of respect for coach Sena. Also in track it is obvious that the workouts Coach Jonathan Hubbs designed helped me be successful.
I think we have a great chance to qualify for the state meet. We have our returning runners who are talented and have worked out strong during the summer. We have some new runners who if they continue to improve, put us in good shape to possibly win CCS. We just all hope everybody stays healthy to the end.
I enjoy running up Chaboya Road and Higuera Road, in the east foothills of San Jose. They are both challenging hills, and the view from the top is spectacular. Favorite workout? I don’t like fartleks, but I enjoy long runs, hills, and track workouts. In the league, my favorite competitors are the Barnett sisters from Leland. Each race with them was always interesting. I’m always just trying to improve and beat somebody who has beaten me before. At Earlybird this year, I thought I could give Allison Sturges [of Mountain View] some competition, but [Valley Christian’s] Morgan Lira improved five minutes from last year and beat me. At the Half Moon Bay invitational, I was hoping to keep up with Jessie Peterson, but instead got beaten by Carlmont freshman Corin Soleberg. So now I have more competitors I want to beat.
The morning of the BVAL league finals, I woke up knowing I had to run against Stephanie Barnett, the person I had admired since cross country season. My goal for that evening was to beat her. Throughout the entire race I stayed behind Stephanie, drafting off of her. She paced, I ran. With the last 300 meters to go I knew I had to take off or I would not win the race. On the back stretch, when I passed her I was freaking out because there was no one in front of me and I had just passed Stephanie Barnett. My body and breathing felt great, and my legs had a super fast turn over. Coming into the final stretch I had the crowd cheering for me, (probably 3/4th of the crowd was my relatives) and I sprinted all the way to the finish. When Coach Hubbs told me the time, I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I realized that since I was able to beat a high caliber runner such as Stephanie Barnett, and improved my time (11:14) that I would be able to compete at a higher level than I had been competing. At the end of the race, I was so excited about winning the race and my personal record, but didn’t realize until a while later that I was BVAL champ. Winning BVAL as a team in cross country in 2008 was exciting, so winning an individual championship as a freshman is definitely a highlight in my life.
With my parents and often relatives attending my events, they give me words of wisdom and support me 100%. They always tell me to do my best and their goal for me is to simply finish the race. It is nice to have them there on good days and most definitely on bad days. I feel lucky to have them there. It helps that they grew up with cross country and understand the commitment and sacrifice that runners make every day. I am also spoiled by my big brother, Spike, he always has a Gatorade waiting for me at the end of each race. I don’t even hold the bottle, he pours it straight into my mouth.
At this point in time, I don’t know where I would like to go to college, it seems so far away. It may be fun to run in college, especially if it gives me an opportunity to go to a college that I would like to attend (when I figure that out).
Thanks for allowing Cross Country Express to interview you. Best of luck in your future running endeavors!
BOYS
Division II, the strongest grouping of all the five CCS divisions last year, looks to be even better in 2009. Mountain View leads a group of teams battling for the three spots advancing to the state meet. The Spartans placed third at the CIF meet last year and return their top three harriers from the podium finish. Garrett Rowe proved himself to be a strong big meet performer in both cross country and track, coming in second over the 5k course at Woodward Park in 15:03 and fourth in the 3200 meters in 8:55. Though dominant most of the last cross country season, Rowe was often challenged by teammate Ian Myjer. Myjer defeated Rowe at the Clovis Invite in 15:17 and was just a second behind his teammate at Crystal Springs in 14:57. Mountain View's 3-4-5 will likely consist of outstanding junior Parker Schuh (15:31 at Crystal Springs, 15:38 at Woodward Park), junior Brian Crook, and senior Alex McGuirk.
Paul Summers from Gunn had a solid 2008 cross country season, turning out times of 15:40 at Crystal Springs and 15:59 at Woodward Park, but exploded onto the scene of elite CCS athletes with his 9:13 over 3200 meters this past spring. Summers leads a Gunn squad that returns all of its top five, four of whom were sub-17 minute Crystal SpringsProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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unners.
Coming off a strong track season in which he improved his PR's to 4:15 for 1600 meters and 9:07 for 3200 meters, Phillip Macquitty leads a somewhat depleted Palo Alto team in its attempt to again qualify for state as a team. Having graduated numbers two and three, the Vikings only return three under the 17 minute mark at Crystal Springs. Challenging Paly for the third spot will be Los Gatos. The traditionally strong program had a bit of a down year in 2008, but looks to rebound behind star junior Will Geiken. Like Summers, Geiken exploded onto the scene with a 9:20 3200 effort during track season. The Wildcats return four of their five scorers.
Top 5 Teams (Top 3 advance to state)
Watch out for: Woodside, Leigh
Top 5 returning individuals, (place) & 2008 CCS meet time:
A number of remaining teams will battle for the two team bids to the state meet. Los Gatos has a strong #1 runner in junior Katie Castro, but will need improvement by other runners to contend. Lynbrook has a similar predicament with a solid 1-2 punch of Cindy Huang (2:13 800m, 18:36 at Crystal Springs) and Lauren Tang, but need improvement from a number of low 20 minute Crystal runners to sure up the back end of the rotation.
Presentation returns three sub-20 minute Crystal Springs runners, highlighted by junior Tori Tsolis, a 5:13 and 2:14 track runner. If the Panthers can find a strong fifth runner, they can be a force in Division II. St. Francis has two athletes in the 19s at Crystal Springs as well as two on the cusp of breaking the 20 minute barrier.
Top 5 Teams (Top 3 advance to state)
Watch out for: Palo Alto, Leland, Mitty
Top 5 returning individuals, (place) & 2008 CCS meet time:
From Kevin Liao, 12th grader at Evergreen Valley HS.
Since I'm going to be in Beijing for the Olympics, I've been putting together previews for the distance events. I've already finished the Men's 800, which I've posted here: http://track.flocasts.org/blogs/blogger/attackthehill
Feel free to post this on your blog or give the link.
Thanks,
Kevin
Added today from the Petaluma Argus Courier:
Petaluma has hopes of a national ranking.
The following is Bjorn Griepenburg's account of Petaluma's trip to the Nike Team Nationals this past weekend as they competed in the Open Race and had an outstanding effort. Bjorn, Petaluma's 5th man at NTN, is standing far right on the picture to the left courtesy of Bill Yungert.
Our team’s trip to the Nike Team Nationals was a perfect way to end a great cross country season. We went up to Portland with the plan to relax and soak in the experience while enjoying ourselves, which we unquestionably succeeded in doing.
For Cole Yungert and myself, this represented our last high school cross country race, so we obviously wanted to go out with hard fought races. Everyone else did too—after state, the seven of us came together and talked about our race, realizing that no one met his individual goal. I think we were all a bit disappointed with the times we ran, although we were ecstatic at the same time to make the DII podium. Going into the NTN Open race, all seven of us wanted to make up for our races at state and go out on a good note, leaving nothing to regret.
With that being said, we did not approach this race with the same focus that we did for state, and it may have helped. On Friday we ran the course, which was incredibly sloppy. We practiced jumping over the hay bales and running the camel back hills, two of the more unique aspects that, along with the mud, make the course unlike anything else in high school cross country. After a day of sliding around in the mud, we were anxiously awaiting the next morning’s race, despite the “unfavorable” weather forecasts.
The weather forecasts had all of us excited. Coming from the Bay Area, Portland’s weather took awhile to adjust to, but we were all wishing for the sloppiest conditions possible. On Friday night the forecast for our race was low 30’s with snow. We watched a movie and joked around, keeping our minds off of the race.
We woke up early Saturday morning and piled into our vans to head over to the course. It was snowing when we got there, the first snow any of us had seen in quite some time. Unfortunately, it stopped snowing by the time our race began.
There is nothing that can describe the Portland Meadows course. There are a number of areas with standing water, including “the lake,” a portion of ankle deep water that stretches about 50 meters. The entire course is on mud and grass, both of which slow runners down dramatically. The race itself was probably the most fun one I will ever be involved in.
We finished fourth, behind the Kenyans, Vista Murrieta, and Crescenta Valley, three great teams that helped provide the race with some high quality competition. I don’t think there was any disappointment in the performance. All in all, it was a great experience, and a great way to cap off my high school cross country career.
Here is a new blog that has been started by two of the best NCS runners from '06/'07 (Joey Kochlacs of Campolindo and Calvin Thigpen of Maria Carrillo) who are now attending Chico (Kochlacs) and UC Davis (Thigpen)respectively. Both runners share their experiences during their first collegiate seasons in their first posts. It's definitely worth the read for any runners that have the desire to compete beyond the high school level. You can access their blog at the link below. Both runners will also be contributing to this blog as well during the winter and Track and Field seasons. They will be a great addition!
Matt Duffy was involved in one of the most exciting races this past Saturday as he had a come from behind victory over Willits' Kenny Smith. Here is his version of the race as well as his team's efforts at the NCS MOC.
I once read that the journey is more important then the destination itself. On Saturday, I figured that out. For both my team and me individually the goal was to win a NCS championship, disregarding time or margin of victory. In the end both goals were accomplished, though both much different then the other. Team wise I felt like we had an awesome performance, putting our #5 runner in before any other team's #2 runner while scoring only 40 pts. After our League Championship meet we made a goal to score under 55 pts., so needless to say we were very pleased. Individually things may not have gone as smooth as I had wished, in the second mile when I became fatigued it felt like the wheels were falling off, every runner and coach knows that feeling, and has seen or experienced it in some way. It is easy to expect things to go one way, but the truth is, which I am sure all of us can testify to is that most of the time things do not go as planned and you don't feel as you thought you would. For better or worse, that is how it is. So Saturday was a special day for me as I feel like I had the same struggle my sister did her senior year at the NCS Meet of Champions when she came from behind on the last downhill to win her third NCS individual title, it seems like some things run in the family and some things just happen. I know Saturday taught me an important lesson and that is to never quit, until you reach the line because nothing matters until the line is crossed. I would like to congratulate and wish Kenny Smith from Willits HS the best of luck and State and beyond, as he ran a tremendous race, was an amazing competitor and showed great sportsmanship.
I would also like to congratulate our Girls team who won their first section title since 1999, scoring 39 points. It was an exciting day for our entire program and it is not something that we take lightly. Section championships are a special thing and it is not only important to remember the accomplishment but the journey that it took to get there.
Saint Mary's congratulates everyone who ran, watched and cheered on Saturday for a job well done. Also I know we wish everyone the best of luck at the state meet as the journey continues another week. GO NCS! Thank you and happy thanksgiving!
