CIF State Track and Field Championships
Girls high jump: 5, Cassie Ackemann, San Lorenzo Valley, 5-6
Girls 1,600: 9, Alex Stout, Pacific Collegiate, 4:55.58
Girls 800: 4, Mari Friedman, Santa Cruz, 2:09.08
Girls 3,200: 11, Alex Stout, Pacific Collegiate, 10:37.10
CLOVIS >> Pumping down the home stretch of her 800-meter race in sixth place with two girls ahead of her, just close enough that she couldn’t split them, Mari Friedman had to make a decision.
A) Resign herself to that position, which would fulfill the Santa Cruz High junior’s minimum goal of making the podium at the CIF State Track and Field Championships.
Or …
B) Run wide of them, costing her precious time and energy but giving her the chance to overtake them.
Anyone who knows Friedman knows she wouldn’t go out without a fight. The junior chose plan “B.” She found a well of energy she didn’t know she had and, in the last 60 meters Saturday, willed herself into fourth place on the track at Veterans Memorial Stadium at Buchanan High and deeper into the Cardinals’ record book.
Her place, which she earned with a personal record of 2 minutes, 9.08 seconds, was the highest earned at state by any Santa Cruz County athlete this season. Santa Cruz distance coach Greg Brock said it also marked her as the first Cardinal girl to have placed at state.
“You always have these wild and crazy dreams,” Brock said. “From what I felt this morning to now, I’m ecstatic.
“To finish the season with a PR and on the podium, we’re ecstatic.”
Alyssa Brewer of California High in San Ramon defended her title in 2:07.07, but she was pushed all the way by Del Oro’s Cathilyn McIntosh (2:07.62).
Friedman ran in sixth from nearly the starting gun, and said she felt more wasted than she expected at the midway point. With the finish line in sight, however, she said she went with her instinct.
“At the last second, I decided to go around,” she said. “I had a lot more in me than I thought I did.”
The county’s two other athletes to reach the state final — San Lorenzo Valley’s Cassie Ackemann and Pacific Collegiate’s Alex Stout — felt the opposite.
Ackemann, who entered the meet tied for the top height in the state this season in the high jump at 5-foot-10, said she didn’t have the speed she needed late in the meet. She cleared three heights on her first jump, including 5-6, but topped out there. Abigail Burke of Poly of Riverside won by clearing 5-8 on her first attempt.
The good news for Ackemann, however, is that she has another meet remaining this season: the junior national meet in Sacramento at the end of the month.
“That will be another opportunity to show what I can actually do,” the senior, who has a full ride to Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said. “Because that’s not what I can do.”
Stout said she felt the effects of running a personal record in the 1,600 in the qualifiers a day earlier. She also felt the mental effects of having to run two more races Saturday night.
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All day, the PCS junior tried to convince herself she had just one race to run in the 96-degree heat of the championships.
“I was doing my best not to (think about it) all day long,” she said. “I tried to convince myself I didn’t have a second race. I thought I bought into that.”
Yet from the first steps she took on the track of Veteran Memorial Stadium, she knew she hadn’t fooled anyone. And by the final stretch of her 1,600 final, she was still trying to outrun those thoughts.
Running with tired arms, Stout finished ninth in that race in 4:55.58 seconds. Three hours later, in the 3,200, she took 11th in 10:37.10.
Stout entered the 1,600 with the fifth-fastest time after running a PR of 4:51.73 in Heat 1, which was won by eventual state champion Maddy Denner (4:44.89) of Oak Ridge. The Puma would have placed third if she repeated that feat, but she said she wasn’t disappointed with her time, which was the second-fastest in her career.
“My two best times in two days,” she said. “I can’t feel too bad.”
Neither Denner nor Stout was on the distance-runner radar prior to this season. Stout lopped 20 seconds off her time in her second meet of the season. Then, after missing a good chunk of the season with a hip injury, she came back and improved on that time in winning the Central Coast Section championship.
Denner and her sister, Elena, meanwhile, were swimmers up until this season, when they decided to go out for track and took the distance races by storm. Maddy Denner (10:19.18) took second in the 3,200, behind runaway winner Claudia Lane (10:07.33) of Malibu.
Contact Julie Jag at 831-706-3257.
