Virtually all of the 80 participants in last Saturday’s Foot Locker Nationals at Balboa Park’s Morley Field would agree on one thing: it was an honor to compete in the national championship cross country event.
Eastlake High School sophomore Patricia Miessner earned her moment in history by qualifying to compete as one of 40 runners in the elite girls field. She finished 37th with a time of 19:18.6 in the 5K race.
It wasn’t her best race by any means but considering the national-caliber competition she faced, it was a measuring stick.
“It was a great opportunity I never thought I would have — hopefully, I can do much better than this year,” she offered politely after the race, while looking ahead to competing in the event the next two years.
“It was a lot of hard work to get here. It meant a lot to me. It was amazing to be able to run on my home course.”
Miessner, as a hometown qualifier, received a boisterous welcome from the standing-room only room crowd that lined the course. She strode out to cheers and fans kept cheering for her throughout the race.
“That was crazy,” she said, smiling amid disappointment.
Miessner, this year’s Mesa League and San Diego Section Division I individual champion, set a personal record by placing 17th at the California state championship meet on Nov. 25 with a time of 18:15.4 — nearly 30 seconds ahead of her time posted as a freshman at the state finals.
Miessner finished as the 10th and final qualifier at the Foot Locker West Regional meet on Dec. 2, timing 18:26 on the 5K Mt. SAC course in Walnut.
The Eastlake runner did score a moral victory at last Saturday’s nationals by finishing 12 seconds ahead of the West Regional’s ninth-place finisher, Alissa Fielding, a senior from Mountain View High School in Orem, Utah.
The Morley Field course, with no level surface at any point, is a true cross country course. Runners challenge the hill part of the course twice and face an arduous uphill climb to the finish line.
Besides the obvious physical rigors of running a challenging course, this year’s event also included unseasonably warm temperatures and low humidity levels.
In fact, one runner, Newsome High School senior Bailey Hertenstein, from Brandon, Fla., did not finish the race.
The girls race was a sprint from the start, with defending national champion Claudia Lane, a junior from Malibu High School, jumping out to a sizable 14-second lead almost immediately. Her strategy was to grab the lead early and hold onto it.
She did just that in winning her second consecutive national championship. She finished the otherwise taxing Morley Field course in 17:03.4 — 18 seconds ahead of Midwest runner Katelynne Hart, a sophomore from Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn, Ill.
Only a handful of girls have gone under 17:00 in the history of the event. Lane becomes the ninth two-time girls champion in the event’s history that dates to 1979.
Lane won the West Regional qualifying race by a gigantic margin of 71 seconds over Lewis and Clark High School senior Katherine Thronson, of Spokane, Wash.
Runners were divided into geographic regional teams of 10 each at the Foot Locker Nationals. The Midwest team won the girls race with 29 points, followed by the Northeast team with 48 points, the South team with 79 points and the West team with 82 points.
After Lane, the next West finisher, Thronson, placed 19th in 18:26.9.
Miessner was unable to find a spot in the pack following a congested start and trailed the field after the first turn. She battled to move up throughout the race.
“It was a really amazing year,” she offered in retrospect. “I didn’t do well at all (here) but I’m grateful to have the opportunity to compete in an event like this.”
Dylan Jacobs, a senior from Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park, Ill., won the elite boys race in 15:19.7. He broke away from a lead pack of four runners in the last half of the race to prevail by four seconds ahead of runner-up finisher Gradyon Morris, a sophomore from Aledo High School, in Aledo, Tex.
Morris, in turn, finished four seconds ahead of Daniel Kilrea, a senior from Lyons Township High School in La Grange Park, Ill. Kilrea edged John Tatter, a senior from R.J. Reynolds High School in Winston-Salem, N.C., by a scant 0.6-second margin.
Jacobs took the lead from Kilrea on the second big hill.
Jacobs used his experience to prevail in the tight field after finishing 11th last year.
“I looked back and knew I had this the last 100 yards,” Jacobs said. “The second mile I felt good. My throat was dry and my lips were dry but that wasn’t an excuse not to win the race.”
West Regional champion Kashon Harrison, a junior from Kirtland Central High School in Fruitland, N.M., finished 14th in 15:50.9.
Cathedral Catholic High School senior Joaquin Martinez de Pinillos, like Eastlake’s Miessner, a hometown qualifier, finished 29th in the boys field in 16:15.7. He had placed third at the West Regional qualifying meet — five seconds behind Harrison — after placing second in the Division III state championship race.
The Dons harrier set the fastest time of the day at the section finals.
The Midwest boys team also claimed the team title at the Foot Locker Nationals by tallying 31 points to edge the South team by one point. The Northeast finished third with 81 points, followed by the West team with 98 points.
Seeing red
Sweetwater High School alumni Maila Lucht and Aylin Mejia were celebrity spectators of sorts at last Saturday’s Foot Locker meet. Both were members of the Lady Red Devils’ Mesa League championship track and field team in 2008.
Lucht went on to compete at Minot State in North Dakota. During the 2013 indoor season, she placed seventh overall in the 800-meter race at the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Championships with a time of 2:24.
Mejia was a member of Southwestern College’s first state championship cross country team in 2010. She went on to compete at San Jose State University. She was the first Lady Spartan across the finish line at the 2013 Mountain West Championship 6K race with a time of 24:49.12.
Both former Lady Red Devil standouts said watching last Saturday’s race brought back fond memories.
“It was awesome — it motivates us to compete,” Mejia said. “Maila is now running marathons; I want to do the same.”
