Postseason 2023

The many great performances by our distance squad at the 2023 SFL Championships not only meant great results at league finals, but translated into a large number of varsity distance runners advancing to Divisionals. In fact, we had a record number of 14. And by “record”, we mean most ever for a Whitney distance team, as well as most of any team in the section this year.

Here is a quick look at each event and the athletes who advanced from league to divisionals:

800m

• Ava Kopec (1st at SFL)
• Addison Ewers (2nd at SFL)
• Grace Scott (5th at SFL)
• Isabel Soto (6th at SFL)
• Mateo DelGadillo (1st at SFL)
• Callum Turner (2nd at SFL)
• Jaden Rapp (4th at SFL)

3200m

• Katie Kopec (1st at SFL)
• Sophie Hutchinson (5th at SFL)
• Nick Herrmann (2nd at SFL)
• Noah Lopez (5th at SFL)
• David Hurren (6th at SFL)
• Joel Tajiri (8th at SFL)

DIVISIONALS (D1)

As was done for league championships, the divisional championships ran the 4x800m Relay as a final at the trials. The difference was at the league meet it was more ceremonial, being that it did not count for points and all we had to do was get the baton around and put up an official finishing mark to advance to the postseason. But at Divisionals, we were genuinely racing.

Quite a few top teams in the section had put up some impressive numbers in terms of rankings for the 4x800m Relay. There were two ways to judge a team’s 4×800 prospects approaching the postseason: 1) Looking at individual 800m times to see which teams had 4 competitive 800m runners, and 2) Finding actual 4x800m Relay Team race results, which applied to all the top contenders. There were about 7 or 8 girls teams who had put up a mark under 10 minutes, with a few in the 9:40’s, including second-seeded Whitney going in at 9:48 from the Arcadia meet. And of course St. Francis was in the mix, with a seed time not far behind Whitney.

There was plenty of anticipation leading up to the first ever 4x800m Relay to be contested at the section level. When the girls race got underway, a good number of teams were near the front, but by mid-race, top seed Franklin had drifted back to the third while a duel for the win was brewing between Whitney and St. Francis. But our girls held off the Troubadours and won the inaugural 4x800m Section Final, hitting an insane 9:23.00. That’s an average of less than 2:21 per leg for each of our 4 runners (most teams have no 2:21 runners, while only a few teams have even just one). Our girls needed every second of that prowess because St. Francis–the only other team in the section with more than one sub-2:21 800m runner– finished a mere 3 seconds behind us. But the Lady ‘Cats were crowned Section Champions in the first-ever 4x800m Relay contested at the section level, earning 10 points for Whitney in the whole track and field team’s quest for a section title.

Our guys 4x800m team went into the postseason in a statistical dead heat with Davis and Jesuit. For a number of years now, 3 boys teams seem to load up on distance runners deep into May… Davis, Jesuit, and Whitney; so it was only fitting that these three teams would wrangle for the top in the first-ever 4×800. The problem was there’s only two state berths, and three teams vying for a berth. At the D1 meet, Davis and Whitney duked it out up front, finishing 1-2, with Jesuit about 60 meters back. The Jesuit runners certainly appeared to be reserving their effort, so we knew they had much more to offer once we all faced off again at the Masters Finals.

With our girls 4×800 winning and our boys 4×800 placing 2nd, both relays advanced to Masters. Aside from the relay, there was plenty of excitement in the individual events.

1600m

• Katie Kopec cruised to 1st place in her quest to earn double gold (1600 and 3200) in the month of May. She won both at SFL Finals, and checked off the 1600 at Divisionals, and was the only girl to break 5 minutes
• Ava Kopec placed 7th in a near PR of 5:08
• Grace Scott placed 9th in 5:12, just 2 seconds off her PR
• Isabel Soto finished 12th, only one second off her PR, going 5:21
• Nick Herrmann elected to scratch the 1600 to focus on a fresh 3200
• Callum Turner blazed to 2nd place, less than a second from being D1 Champion, hitting a huge PR of 4:17, a mere two seconds off the decade-old school record
• Dario Ruscica wrapped up his illustrious high school career, hoping to break his 4:40 PR, but was not able to hit it in his final race as a Whitney runner

800m

• Ava Kopec placed 7th at finals as one of only a few who doubled the 1600 and 800, managing to advance to Masters even on tired legs
• Addison Ewers finished 5th in 2:18, just two seconds off the school record
• Grace Scott placed 9th, just missing a PR by less than a second
• Isabel Soto was 8th, hitting a new PR at 2:20
• Mateo DelGadillo finished 5th, within a second of his PR
• Callum Turner placed 6th in a field where most of the runners were on fresh legs having scratched the 1600
• Jaden Rapp was 13th after trials, just missing top 12 who advanced to finals

3200m

• Katie Kopec, just as she was the only sub-5 runner in the 1600, was the only sub-11 runner in the 3200, achieving double gold as D1 section champion; couple this with her cross country victory at section championships back in November, and Katie rang up 3 individual section titles her senior year
• Sophie Hutchinson ground out a tough 8 laps among a very deep field to finish an impressive 6th place and advance to Masters
• Nick Herrmann finished 4th in a tactical race where hardly any runners hit a PR
• Noah Lopez just missed the 8th qualifying spot, placing 9th
• David Hurren finished 10th and broke 10 minutes for the fourth time this season
• Joel Tajiri placed 20th in his final race of the season

As the Division One Finals wrapped up, one of the biggest storylines was that Whitney claimed section titles for both the boys team and the girls team. A high ratio of points came from our distance runners. Let’s remember that this past fall, Whitney claimed section titles for both the boys team and the girls team. So for the 2022-2023 year, our distance runners were instrumental in earning 4 section titles in one year. That may have never been done in Sac Joaquin Section history and certainly warrants a little research to see if it has ever happened before. It is nonetheless an extremely rare event and may not occur again. It is also worth mentioning that Whitney was voted the top athletic program in the section for claiming 8 section titles this year (girls volleyball, both boys and girls basketball, and girls softball were the others), as well as 3 runner-ups.

MASTERS (State Qualifier)

After a tough and competitive Divisional round, 10 Whitney distance runners were still alive in the postseason and heading to Masters. Once again, the finals action kicked off on Trials day with the Finals of the first ever 4x800m Relay as a California State qualifying event.

On a very warm day, the first running event at pretty much the hottest part of the day was the girls 4×800 relay. With the D1 win in a Top-10 all-time section mark of 9:23, the Lady ‘Cats came in with the number one time. The race figured to be a 5-team scrum in the early legs between Whitney and usual suspects St. Francis and Granite Bay, as well as strong 800m programs Franklin of Elk Grove and Lincoln of Stockton. It’s common for coaches to put their top runners in the lead-off position, the theory being to not fall behind early. Even with the fast start, Izzy started Whitney off in the hunt among the top teams, making the baton exchange to Grace in 5th place. As the second leg settled in, Grace did no such thing; she caught the four frontrunning teams in a bunch 300 meters in, then spent no time with the cluster and blew right past them, already commanding a significant lead at the 400m mark. Grace held first through the exchange to Addi, who maintained the lead throughout her two laps; this is hard to do, as a runner in this situation is running blind. Ava took the baton and held the lead til St. Francis’s anchor tried to overtake Ava at the 450m mark, to which Ava responded by putting on a surge, keeping at least a stride advantage over the final lap and through the finish line. Whitney’s girls had made history by being the first-ever Masters Champions and state qualifiers in the newly sanctioned event.

Next was the boys 4x800m relay. Jesuit, Davis, and Whitney have duked it out in recent years in the boys’ distance events at Masters, so as mentioned earlier, it was only fitting that the top 3 times coming in were–you guessed it–Jesuit, Davis, and Whitney. Due to the closing speed of each of the anchors for Jesuit and Davis, our talking point during the week of preparation for this relay event was simple to state, but very tough to do: we need a 4-second advantage at the 3rd exchange, meaning our first 3 runners (Jaden, Nick, and Callum) would need to establish a lead then grow it in order for Teo to reasonably hold off the late charge from both Davis and Jesuit. It was late in the race before Whitney finally established a lead, consequently there was not much time to develop a gap, and so the 4-second advantage never materialized. It ended up being very close, but ultimately Davis and Jesuit would claim the top two spots, and Whitney was 3rd by just a couple tenths of a second. It was a heartbreaking loss (if you want to call 3rd place out of 25 relay teams a “loss”), as Whitney’s boys 4x800m relay team did not advance to the state meet.

And so after the first day, our four girls on the relay team had punched a ticket to the state meet. Would anymore of our athletes make it in their individual events?

1600m

• Katie Kopec looked to have a bit of a challenge in her effort to win the 1600, being that some fast times were posted from the other divisional meets, and the 1600 is not her specialty; but she took control mid-race and was never really challenged, once again the only sub-5 finisher as she earned the title of Masters 1600m Champion
• Ava Kopec placed 13th, ending her individual season, but heading to state anchoring the 4x800m Relay Team
• Callum Turner ran his final race of his high school career by setting a new 1600m school record at 4:15.75, and in the process came within just a couple hundredths of a second of making state, placing 4th

800m

• Mateo DelGadillo was our sole competitor in the 800 at Masters Finals, as several of our 800m runners scratched the event to focus on either the relay or the 1600, but Mateo made the finals and placed an impressive 5th, missing a state berth by less than a second

3200m

• Katie Kopec achieved one of her “A” goals, which was to score double gold all the way through Masters, then drop the 1600 and focus on the 3200 at state; and that’s exactly what happened as Katie once again cruised uncontested to victory
• Sophie Hutchinson quietly pushed deep into the postseason as a surprising freshman, finishing 13th
• Nick Herrmann ended his high school career placing 11th

CALIFORNIA STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS

The Whitney Track & Field Team had an historic year, winning two league titles and two section titles. With that kind of firepower, could Whitney make a splash at the state meet? On the girls side, we had 5 athletes just on the distance squad (Katie in the 3200, and the 4×800 Relay Team of Izzy, Grace, Addi, and Ava), plus two outstanding field event athletes (Ashanti Elie in the high jump, and Juliana Roberson in the triple jump).

There was definitely a swell of anticipation as the 4×800 relay was approaching. Although it was a staple in 40 other states, it would be the first time ever competed at the California State Meet. We talked with our girls about going for top 10, even though Whitney came in with 12 other teams having posted faster times. But right off the gun, Izzy was running in the top 10, and actually handed off to Grace in 6th. There was a flurry of runners at the next exchange before Addi emerged in 7th, which was an incredible development being this far into the race. Addi held through the final exchange to Ava, and even against the best anchors in the state, Ava maintained position, crossing in 7th. This result far surpassed expectations and rankings. Our girls each ran fantastically well, collectively hitting a team PR a full 6 seconds faster than the blazing 9:23 they posted at Divisionals. With a new best of 9:17, the 2023 Whitney Girls 4x800m Relay Team moved into 2nd on the all-time Sac-Joaquin Section list, and earned 7th place medals at State Championships in the process. Huge outcome for our girls!

Right after the 4×800 relays was the girls 3200m run, and Katie. Much like the conversation with the relay team, Katie had her eye on top 10. She had placed 13th at state the year prior in a performance she felt she could improve upon. And so as the gun went off, Katie set herself to go for top 10 by running in 10th position for much of the early laps. In fact, it appeared she was still holding onto that 10 position going into the final lap where she unleashed a final 400 in an unthinkable sub-70-second surge to pass several runners and grab not just top 10, but all the way up to 6th place. This was the highest place for a Whitney distance runner ever at the state meet. The other half of the story is just as big… Katie PR’d by a whopping 10 seconds, flying to a superhuman time of 10:20. In one race, Katie went from one of the best runners in the area to top 10 in the Sac-Joaquin Section ALL-TIME. That means the entire half century history of girls high school track and field in the section. Massive achievement for Katie, and a very fitting way to cap off a legendary career. Congratulations Katie!

There was one more page to the 2023 Whitney Track & Field story. While our distance girls were rising up and surpassing expectations, so were our field event athletes. Ashanti saved her best for last, placing first in the high jump and earning the title of state champion! Juliana competed very well like our distance girls and placed 7th in the triple jump. All told, Whitney girls scored 17 points, which was good enough for 10th place as a team. Yet another first-ever mark by the 2023 edition of Whitney Track & Field.

Congratulations to our state athletes, our postseason athletes, and our entire team for working together to produce historic results. We know it is the team effort that pushes all to be their best.

This ends the 2022-2023 school year, as far as competition for the Whitney Distance Team. With the boys placing 4th at the state meet in cross country last fall, and the girls placing 6th, coupled with the massive success during the spring track season, this arguably may have been the best year competitively in Whitney Distance history. Our runners will take their prescribed breaks, and by the end of June will be back to work as a team, conditioning for the 2023 cross country season.

Go ‘Cats!