Fewer than 1% of all high school athletes can ever claim to be on a state championship team. And in the Sac Joaquin Section, even a section title is rare earth, with the majority of cross country programs never achieving that mark. Our girls varsity have managed 4 consecutive section titles, with two of those teams also reaching the podium at the state meet, and the 4th being the current 2025 team with a chance at not just the podium, but a state title.
As Whitney girls have dominated regionally in recent years, these girls have gained state-wide attention, starting by cracking into the top 10 a couple years ago, and steadily climbing in the state rankings all the way to 2nd by mid-season 2025. Then at Rough Rider, posting the fastest Woodward Park team time of any D2 team in the state, our girls for the first time in history were ranked #1 in California. We always talk about “meeting or beating the rankings”, so this reality carried some extra gravity, to say the least. No doubt, Whitney was not sneaking up on anybody in 2025, and for the first time would head into Woodward Park on Thanksgiving weekend not as an underdog who always rises up to beat the rankings, but as the favorite going in to win it all.
The good news for Whitney was there was no single dominant team in D2 in 2025; the bad news was there were a half dozen other teams close enough in race data to win it all. Most podcasts and previews leading up to the state meet cited the 4th and 5th scorers as being the key to which team would rise to the top. On paper, Whitney was not the most talented team, as the other top contenders fielded rosters of runners who’d come in freshman year as sub-19min 5K athletes, which was not the case for the Lady Wildcats. Our girls had to achieve a larger margin of improvement from their individual starting point than all the other top-ranked teams just to be at the level to compete for the state title.
The reality that up to 7 or 8 teams were closely matched meant that a championship would only come from a team rising up in a big way. There is little chance all 7 or 8 top teams would collectively run par. Our team would have to do something special to emerge as champions. For the Whitney girls, that message started with knowing all of our runners had to have at least a good day, while 2 or 3 would have to rise up and have a great day (one of the key talking points leading up to the big race). The team focused on how to race Woodward Park (another key point). The message, which was in context with how Whitney races anyway, was to script a measured first mile knowing two things: 1) the pace will go out very fast, and 2) the middle mile of the course is the most challenging. The strategy then would be to yield some positioning early, having faith that a strong 2nd mile would more than make that up, and of course all out in the final mile to ensure not giving anything back.
Each girl had a target time for their first mile split, based on their even-pace ability, and as the race reached mile one, each girl hit within a few seconds of that target. The team result at mile one? We were way back in 12th place, with lots of ground to make up. By the time the race reached the back hill nearing the two mile mark, all the Whitney runners had moved up significantly, and the result at the 2.1 mile mark showed that Whitney had gained a combined 186 positions, vaulting an incredible 11 team places forward, meaning the Lady Wildcats improved from 12th to 1st during that critical and tactically more difficult middle mile.
So our girls were suddenly winning, but there was still a full mile to go, and Claremont and Westlake were tied for 2nd just 7 points back. All Whitney coaches and parents lined the course at various locations to cheer our girls on, and most critically to urge our girls to not allow a single runner to pass. Team leader, Sophie Hutchinson fought hard for top 10 and ended up very close, holding onto 11th place. Eva Soto was one of only a handful of runners to negative split the final mile, passing 12 in the final mile to break 18 minutes, going 17:59, and placing 21st overall. Jane Landon was next, also running a negative split, and hitting a massive personal best for any 5K, and importantly not yielding a single point over the last mile. Kaylee Smith ran a negative split final mile as well on her way to her lifetime best XC race, shattering the 19-minute barrier to go 18:39, and gaining a whopping 17 positions in that final mile. Addi Ewers ensured that all 5 of Whitney’s scorers were under 19 minutes, hitting 18:47 while moving up 5 spots. Ava Hurren also moved up 5 positions, displacing several scoring runners from multiple top ranked teams. And Isabel Leal managed to move up as well, gaining 6 spots to complete what was an historic day for Whitney, as every member of this 7-runner team did their part to seize the lead and hold the lead all the way through the finish line.
Not only did the Whitney girls manage to hang onto their 1st place position over the final exhausting mile, but they netted a very comfortable cushion so in terms of scoring, it ended up not being very close. The Lady Wildcats won the state title by 25 points.
The Whitney Girls Varsity Cross Country Team became 2025 CIF Division II State Champions.
This achievement was historic in so many ways, as the road to the state title included a full list of milestones …
- 3 consecutive SFL Championship titles
(the Sierra Foothill League has two league meets per season: SFL#1 and SFL Finals; Whitney girls beat nationally ranked St. Francis and state-ranked Davis and Oak Ridge at both league meets) - 4 consecutive Sac Joaquin Section D2 titles (2022-2025)
- 3 consecutive podium teams at CIF State Championships (2nd in 2023, 3rd in 2024, and 1st in 2025)
- Fastest team time from the Sac Joaquin Section at the 2025 state meet, regardless of division
- 9th fastest D2 team time ever recorded in the history of the state meet (since 1987)
- 2nd fastest team (behind the Davis team a decade ago) in Sac Joaquin Section history, regardless of division
- Fastest team ever in Placer County, Sacramento County, Eldorado County…
- 1st large school (D1 or D2) girls team in Sac Joaquin Section history to win a state championship in cross country
- 1st team in Whitney High School history to win a state title in any sport
- 1st high school team in all of Rocklin to ever win a state title in any sport
Top runner, senior Sophie Hutchinson, broke the school record in the cross country 5K, with a time of 17:40
This line-up of these 7 girls went undefeated through the Fall 2025 Cross Country Season, including large invitationals featuring top teams throughout California, as well as both league meets, which is the SFL (Sierra Foothill League), considered one of the toughest leagues in the state, before “4-peating” as section champions, and ultimately claiming the D2 CIF Girls State Championship trophy
And so these girls earned the right to say for the rest of their lives what fewer than 1% of all high school student athletes ever get to say… “I’m a state champion!”
Congratulations to the 2025 Whitney Women’s Cross Country
Division II State Championship Team!