Coronado’s freshmen carried the day at Woodward Park at the California State Championships in Fresno on Nov. 25.
Coronado’s young team consisted of four freshmen, one sophomore, and one junior.
It was the girls’ team’s 30th trip since 1987 to state, either as a team or as individual qualifiers. according to Coach George Green.
Coronado’s top runner was sophomore Morgan Maske, who clocked 21:08 over the 5000-meter state meet course.
The next four finishers for the Islanders were freshman Carly DeVore, with a time of 21:31, followed by Gwynne Letcher (21:34), Nadia Roos (23:10), Maesan Everitt (23:31), and junior Jaya Jost (23:39).
Rebuilding thanks to freshmen
Before COVID, Coronado’s girls had a 14-year streak at the state meet that ended in 2000 when the meet was canceled.
Since then, Coronado has been rebuilding but could not qualify anyone for the 2021 and 2022 seasons, Green said.
This season, thanks to four freshmen joining the team from the middle school program, Coronado qualified as a team by placing third at the CIF finals, Green said.
Challenging race
The California State Meet is very competitive, with 10 races in five divisions (girls and boys).
Each race has around 200 top runners by division in the state, so the starting line is a bit crowded, Green said.
For Coronado’s division (D4), the Islanders were the only team with four freshmen running; only six teams had two running, and no other team had as many as three, Green said.
Out of all the girls’ teams running, with around 1,000 girls, only one other school had more than three freshmen on their team.
