Every spring as we approach championship season, we shift our focus in training to hopefully bring about a collective peak for our distance runners. If we’re going to call ourselves a “May-vember Team”, meaning we rise up when it’s the postseason in May (track) and November (XC), we should see some higher-than-expected performances during Finals. And did we ever see that in 2023!
Here’s a smattering of what our incredible runners accomplished during SFL Championships…
- There were 78 lifetime PR’s at SFL Championships among our 51 distance runners
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7 first-time sub-5-minute 1600m times posted in one day (Whitney record) among our boys JV and varsity, adding to the 15 runners who’d already broken 5 minutes, reaching a total of 22, a single season record
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Yet another sub-6-minute 1600m time (Rae Britton) for a Whitney record 11 sub-6 girls in one season
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5 SFL league champions (Katie 1600, Ava K 800 for 3rd yr in a row, Mateo 800 for 2nd yr in a row, Tyler JV 3200, and Katie again 3200)
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Whitney’s varsity boys and girls distance squads scored 88 points, which is half of the total possible points in the 3 distance events. In other words, Whitney scored as much as the other 5 teams in the SFL combined.
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Whitney advanced 14 distance runners to the Division One Meet, more than any other team in the section, and a Whitney record
Specific achievements that speak to the strength of Whitney in the 800…
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Whitney won all 4 races of the first-ever 4x800m relay at a league championship
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Nearly 100% of all of our boys who raced the 800 at SFL Trials hit a lifetime PR
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Whitney scored an unbelievable total of 43 varsity points, boys and girls combined 800, out of a possible 62 points, meaning Whitney outscored the rest of the league 43 to 19
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Two defending champions (Ava and Teo)
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Two runner-ups (Addi and Callum)
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Whitney has not lost a girls 800 SFL Final in 3 years, thanks to 3-time champion Ava
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Whitney has not lost a boys 800 SFL Final since 2018, thanks to Ethan Dodge, Jason Finta, and 2-time defending champion Teo
Let’s continue with a little more detail on the Wednesday Trials session of SFL Championships. There were two featured events for distance runners: 1) the 800m Trials, and 2) the Final of the first ever league competition of the 4x800m Relay.
The 4x800m Relay is an event that has been run at the state meet level in 40 of the 50 states for many years. For some reason, California was not among them. Until this year. In January, the CIF announced the 4x800m Relay would be inserted in the State Championships, and the Sac Joaquin Section would receive two berths for each boys and girls. That’s all we knew, as the CIF left it up to each of the 10 sections to figure out how to determine their section berths. The other sections met right away, agreed, and delivered their guidance early in the season. The Sac Joaquin Section took its time.
So there was a lot of guesswork as to how or whether we would approach a varsity boys and girls 4×800 relay team. It was finally determined that 8 of the 6 teams in our league would automatically advance (yep, you heard that math correctly… “8 of 6”). In other words, everyone advances, up to 8 in a league of 6 teams. The only requirement was that we actually had to run it. Oh, and it would not be a scored event.
This all added up to one conclusion: This would be the easiest qualifier in history, we just at least need to jog the baton around. In the spirit of competition, we weren’t going to mock our sport by jogging it, but we did take the pressure off our runners by opening it up to any 4 boys and 4 girls who wanted to volunteer to get the baton around. Our varsity boys were Landon Wibbeler, Peyton Boyd, Joey Gloria, and Perry Hutchinson, none of whom intended to be on the eventual relay squad, but nonetheless said they’d have fun racing the relay at league finals.
Meanwhile, our top frosh 800m runners (Davis Little, Johann Gothold, Simon Aragoza, Nathan Olah) were all set to go for it on the JV side. When race day came, there was no other JV squad but Whitney. And for varsity, only a couple other teams. This resulted in race officials combining the varsity and JV, which unexpectedly produced one of the most magical moments of the league championship… a neck-and-neck showdown between our top frosh runners, and a group of upper class runners who were hopping in to have some fun. Side by side each leg of the relay went, with the other schools’ varsity squads not keeping up, it ended up being an exciting two-team race of maroon vs. maroon, and eventually a narrow victory by our volunteer varsity boys, followed closely by our freshman team. Whitney went 1-2!
Our varsity girls ended up being our actual line-up that we would designate for the postseason (Izzy Soto, Grace Scott, Addi Ewers, Ava Kopec). And our JV girls, like the boys, had no other teams to compete with, so they combined with the varsity race, which had Whitney and only two other teams. Our varsity girls weren’t racing, but not exactly jogging either, so they won comfortably, and our JV girls crossed in 2nd overall (Sophia Lopez, Inessa Maldonado, Addy Lee, Rae Britton) behind our varsity, so 1st place for JV. And a 1-2 Whitney finish.
For both inaugural SFL 4×800 Relay races, Whitney went into the record books 1-2 each time, and a total of four league crowns.
Those two relays were enough fun and excitement for one meet, but the other task at hand was loading up most of our distance runners in the individual 800m Trials. For a few of our runners, the 800 was their preferred event, so the task was more purposeful: place in the top 12 overall to advance to Friday’s Finals. For everyone else, it was an anaerobic blast to have one final shot at a PR, or just get a little speed work trying. How did the 800m Trials end up? As mentioned earlier, we got to see a ton of PR’s. And in a couple of cases, a PR at Trials was followed by yet another lifetime PR at Finals. The biggest example of this would be the incredible 1-2 varsity boys finish of Mateo DelGadillo and Callum Turner, both breaking 1:57, and each coming within a few tenths of the school record.
800m PR at SFL Championships
Our incredible boys’ effort in the SFL 800 deserves a closer look. This list shows our entire boys’ squad, including each runner who PR’d during SFL Championships, and by how much of a margin:
Addi Ewers (lightning fast 2:19 PR, went on to place 2nd at Finals for huge varsity points)
Izzy Soto (hit a blistering 2:21 PR and was one of 4 ‘Cats to grab a top 6 scoring position)
Grace Scott (flew to a 2:21 PR, part of the Maroon Swarm that scored 21 team points)
Sophie Hutchinson (focusing on the 3200, hopped in the 800 Trials and hit an eye-opening 2:26)
Sophie Bowen (broke 2:30 for the first time ever, hitting a lifetime best of 2:29)
Rae Britton (5 second PR and one of the top frosh-soph, placing 8th at Finals)
Ari Omid (breaking 3 minutes for a lifetime best)
Addy Lee (having hit 3-flat in April, broke the 3-minute barrier in May)
Juliana Ruscica (PR’d each time she raced the 800 this season…10sec, 26sec, 3sec, 4sec)
Here is a list of our runners who PR’d in the 1600m at SFL Finals. These runners earned the iconic and coveted “Whitney Miler” t-shirt 🙂 And it should be mentioned that although not clocking a PR at SFL Finals, Katie Kopec strode to victory having already broken her school record earlier in the season.
1600m PR at SFL Championships
Grace Scott (huge PR at 5:13 before this meet, then 5:10 at Finals = 4th best all-time)
Sophie Bowen (already wowed everyone with a 5:32 coming in, and rocked a 5:26)
Juliana Ruscica (massive 34 second PR, following a 50 second leap from the first meet)
Gillian Kingery (great way to wrap up a stellar 4-yr career… with a 6-second PR)
Sophia Lopez (first-time distance runner had plateaued at 6:44 three times, then hit 6:34)
Arifa Omid (worked all season to break 7 min, hit 6:59 in April, then smashed that at 6:36)
Adelyn Lee (6 races during the season from the high 7’s to the low 7’s, then 6:42 at Finals)
Inessa Maldonado (steadily improved to 7:10 before a 20-second PR at Finals)
Rae Britton (first time ever breaking 6, and she did it while not at 100%)
Dario Ruscica (2 one-hundredths of a second from breaking the prestigious 4:40 barrier)
Perry Hutchinson (20 second improvement from the start of the season)
Tyler Kubota (top 6 non-senior, #1 incoming junior bodes well for looking ahead to varsity XC)
Davis Little (first time ever breaking 5, gutsy performance after coming back from illness)
Peyton Boyd (first time ever breaking 5… 4 times in the 5-teens, 6 times in the 5-0’s … joila)
Landon Wibbeler (first time ever breaking 5… 8 times in the 5-teens, twice in the 5-0’s…joila)
Max Bowen (first time ever breaking 5, really went for it, dropping all the way from 5:12)
Brendan Whitmore (first time ever breaking 5… top candidate for Comeback Player of the Year)
Jack Regan (first time ever breaking 5, no doubt will let his older brother hear about it)
Joey Gloria (first time ever breaking 5, largest margin of all, coming all the way from 5:14)
Tyler Crabtree (5:04 not bad for a runner who seems stronger in the longer distances)
Akanis Surapak (one single 1600m PR for the season… saved it for SFL Finals)
James Totaro (from barely breaking 6 in March to closing in on breaking 5 in May at 5:15)
Maximus Kotte (massive improvement of 40 seconds since the season began)
Connor Groff (outstanding first season running distance, improved 44 seconds this season)
Keaton McDermott (over half a minute faster at SFL Finals than start of the season)
Caden Martin (38 seconds faster from first week of March to the first week of May)
Like she did in the 1600, Katie cruised to a convincing win in the 3200, not needing a PR, which came in the form of her breaking her own school record in April.
And being that the boys varsity 3200 was a tactical “sit-n-kick” pace in the early going, it was not a PR night. Nick Herrmann continued his prestigious year though by placing 2nd to the eventual Masters champion, having his share of significant PR’s during the season by breaking the school record twice.
3200m PR at SFL Championships
Sophie Hutchinson (already nailed a flying 11:21, but nearly broke 11 at 11:06 to advance)
Mandy Rao (PR’d her previous 3200m outing, then knocked off another 15 sec at SFL Finals)
Gillian Kingery (after hitting a 1600m PR, why not PR by 20 sec in your final high school race?)
Ari Omid (ran in the 16’s in March, PR’d in the 15’s in April, then hit a new best in May at 14:22)
Addy Lee (nearly a minute and a half improvement over the season for an SFL Finals PR)
Inessa Maldonado (PR’d each new time she raced the 3200, finishing with a 15:14 at Finals)
Juliana Ruscica (PR’d every time she raced this season, except once, all race distances)
Tyler Kubota (beat a very talented Rocklin runner to be JV Champion, and PR’d too)
Perry Hutchinson (followed up a 1600m PR at Finals with a 3200m PR at Finals)
Johann Gothold (incredible race, placing 5th to score as a freshman, with a blazing 10:48 PR)
James Totaro (like his 1600 story, major leaps at season’s end, big PR at 12:02 at Finals)
Connor Groff (steady improvement, PR’d every time racing the 3200 this season)
Maximus Kotte (PR’d each time he raced the 3200, including SFL Finals, almost breaking 12)
Other accomplishments most definitely worth mentioning as we wrap up the very memorable 2023 Track & Field season…
- A Whitney record 8 girls broke 12 minutes in the 3200 in one season (best in the section)
- A Whitney record 9 boys broke 10 minutes in the 3200 in one season (best in the section)
- That means 17 boys and girls total breaking 10 minutes or 12 minutes in the 3200 in one season; this has never been done before in the history of the Sac Joaquin Section
- With our varsity distance runners scoring 88 points (the next best team scored 34 distance points), the 2023 squad kept a streak alive of Whitney Distance being the highest scoring distance squad every year in the powerful SFL, beginning when we joined the league in 2018
Hats off to our amazing student athletes, many of them who commit to a year-round program to achieve what they achieve. The life lessons they are gaining are invaluable, but the medals, banners, titles, PR’s and accolades along the way sure make it a lot of fun.
Thanks to all for yet another incredible track and field season.