History — or herstory, if you will — will be made Saturday, Dec. 9, at Balboa Park’s Morley Field when Eastlake High School sophomore Patricia Miessner takes the course for the girls race at the prestigious Foot Locker National Championship cross country meet.
She is the first qualifier from the school to compete in an event of this magnitude, at least in cross country.
The accomplishment is not lost on anyone in the Eastlake cross country program — or in the Sweetwater Union High School District, for that matter.
“Anytime anyone can go beyond the section championships is a huge accomplishment,” said Joe Heinz, who serves as the district athletics coordinator. “It’s a big deal for Eastlake and our district.”
The Foot Locker Nationals feature the top 40 male and female high school runners in the nation. Qualification is through four regional championship meets in which the top 10 place-finishers in each region advance.
Miessner qualified as the 10th-place individual in the West Region championship race held last Saturday in Walnut.
Other regional qualifying meets included those in the Northeast Region, South Region and Midwest Region.
Two runners from San Diego County, in fact, will be competing in the Foot Locker Nationals this Saturday. Cathedral Catholic High School senior Joaquin Martinez de Pinillos will compete in the boys race after qualifying third at the West Region finals.
Both Miessner and Martinez de Pinillos are unquestionably elite runners.
Miessner won the Division I girls race at the San Diego Section championship meet Nov. 18 at Morley Field before going on to place 17th at the state championship meet in Fresno on Nov. 25.
Martinez de Pinillos won the Division III boys race at the section finals with the fastest time of the day before going on to post a meteoric second-place finish at the state finals the following week.
Miessner and Martinez de Pinillos are the first San Diego Section qualifiers for the Foot Locker Nationals since La Costa Canyon’s Darren Fahy in 2011 and Rancho Bernardo’s Molly Grabill in 2010.
Prior to that, El Camino’s A.J. Acosta won the boys national championship title in 2005.
Grabill finished ninth in 2010; Fahy finished 17th in 2011.
Field of dreams
Eight Californians — five in the girls race and four in the boys race — will compete in Saturday’s Foot Locker Nationals.
Malibu High School junior Claudia Lane won the West Region girls race in 16:59.6 to become a two-time regional champion and qualify for her second consecutive nationals race.
Lane left no doubt about which runner would win this year’s regional title after finishing 12 seconds ahead of Lewis and Clark High School senior Katherine Thronson from Spokane, Wash.
Oakmont High School senior Alize Hartke (Roseville) finished fourth while Capistrano Valley senior Alyssa Bautista (San Clemente) finished fifth. Walnut junior Chloe Arriaga was seventh.
Miessner finished 2.5 seconds behind Mountain View senior Alissa Fielding (Orem, Utah) in 18:26.0 to lock up the final nationals-qualifying berth. Miessner was in 11th place entering the final leg of the race but moved up after one of the girls ahead of her began to falter on the course.
Miesser went unchallenged after moving up to 10th place, finishing 14 seconds ahead of her nearest challenger.
It was a jaw-dropping performance for the EHS sophomore, who entered the regional championship race seeded 64th.
She said her goal was to just finish among the top 30 runners, which she did with a flourish.
Kirtland Central High School junior Kashon Harrison (Fruitland, N.M.) won the West Region boys championship in 15:38.4. Bellarmine College Prep senior Meikael Beaudoin-Rosseau finished second in 15:41.1 to qualify for this second Foot Locker Nationals.
Martinez de Pinillos finished third in 15:43.4. He called qualifying for the Foot Locker Nationals the highlight of his individual running career.
He said his strategy was to get out in front of the rest of the field and “work the hills,” which he did successfully.
Other Golden State nationals qualifiers include Liberty Ranch High School senior Collin Ullrich and Rancho Cucamonga High School senior Darius Riley. Ullrich, from Galt, finished sixth in the qualifying field while Riley finished ninth.
On course
Miessner, this year’s Mesa League individual champion, won the Division I individual section title in 17:36.1 on a 2.96-mile course that was specifically redesigned for the section championship meet. The Eastlake harrier finished a whopping 20 seconds ahead of El Camino junior Liliana Prieto, the runner-up finisher in the race.
Martinez won the Division III individual section title in 15:03.5. He finished 17 seconds ahead of La Costa Canyon junior Jacob Stanford, the runner-up finisher.
Miessner finished 31 seconds ahead of Olympian junior Mariana Beltran-Picos at the Mesa League finals on Nov. 10 at Chula Vista’s Rohr Park.
Miessner was understandably elated to win her first league championship after finishing runner-up as a freshman.
“It felt really good to win league because I came up short last year and it was really disappointing,” Miessner said after winning this year’s league title. “My strategy was just to stay out in front. I knew I would have some competition with Mariana, who beat me last year. I wanted to kind of pace off her.
“I knew I had been training really hard, so I had good stamina and could stay ahead of her after the second mile. I kind of stayed with her and paced off her the first mile and tried to push the second mile to get out in front.”
It’s been a strategy that has worked to near perfection thus far this season.
Race day
Saturday’s Foot Locker Nationals will be streamed live on the Internet (www.footlockercc.com), starting at 8 a.m. The girls championship race starts at 9:15 a.m., followed by the boys championship race at 10 a.m.
Runners will navigate a 5K course on Morley Field, hallowed ground for local prep runners.
The race, which is the longest-running national cross country race for high school students, dates to its origins in 1979 as the Kinney Cross Country Championships. That first race featured just 10 boys and 10 girls.
Melody Fairchild set the girls course record of 16:39.8 in 1990; Ruben Reina set the boys course record of 14:36.8 in 1985.
Runners from 29 states will compete in Saturday’s Foot Locker Nationals.
The West Region field is comprised of runners from California (nine), Utah (six), Washington (four) and New Mexico (one).
States represented from the Midwest Region include Michigan (six), Illinois (five), Ohio (three), Minnesota (two), Indiana (two), Colorado (one) and Wisconsin (one).
States represented from the South Region include Texas (five), Tennessee (four), Florida (four), North Carolina (three), West Virginia (one), Virginia (one), Georgia (one) and Arkansas (one).
States represented from the Northeast Region include Pennsylvania (five), New Jersey (four), New York (three), Massachusetts (two), Connecticut (two), New Hampshire (one), District of Columbia (one), Maryland (one) and Rhode Island (one).
Midwest Region individual champions included Olivia Theis of Lansing, Mich., (girls) and Daniel Kilrea of LaGrange Park, Ill., (boys).
South Region individual champions included Rebecca Story of Knoxville, Tenn., (girls) and John Tatter of Winston-Salem, N.C., (boys).
Northeast Region individual champions included Marlee Starlpier of Wellsville, Pa., (girls) and Tristan Shelgren of Boxford, Mass., (boys).
