Williamson comes back

Around this time a year ago, Sage Hill School’s Cait Williamson limped into her final race.

A sprained right ankle held her back at the CIF State Division V girls’ cross country championships as a sophomore. The previous year, it was the stress of competing as a freshman eating her up at the end.

“I completely died,” said Williamson, a junior laughing about her 95th-place finish as a freshman and 21st as a sophomore. “The memories I have [at state] aren’t that great.”

Williamson has a chance to create a new one today, when the state meet at Fresno’s Woodward Park gets underway. This time the worries are gone and Williamson is in full stride.

As Sage Hill Coach Nate Miller said, “she has a nothing to lose attitude.”

With her teammates around for the third straight year at state, Williamson was more excited that her team qualified after she became the first Lightning runner in school history to win a CIF Southern Section Division V individual cross country title.

Williamson expected to return to the state meet’s 5K course after her stellar performance last week at the section finals at Mt. San Antonio College, where she recorded a time of 18 minutes, 32 seconds. She was five seconds away from setting a personal best.

As for the team’s chance to visit Fresno again, that was a different story.

With two runners lost to graduation, one transferring to Mater Dei, and one deciding not to run after helping Sage Hill to a seventh-place showing last year, the school’s best, the program was in transition.

“The team was never a sure thing,” said Miller, whose team finished sixth, securing one of the section’s seven team berths into state. “I was very confident about Cait and Katie [McKeon] making it individually.”

That’s how the two saw it as well, even though McKeon entered her senior year with a severely sprained ankle from summer basketball. Williamson never doubted McKeon, the same runner who helped Williamson as a freshman and showed her and the rest of the Lightning what it took to reach state.

In reality, running around the school proved to be the perfect training ground with hills nearby for Sage Hill’s top five, Williamson, McKeon, sophomore Jackie Dion, senior Iral Brito and sophomore Megan Culberson. To get to state you have to run on the steep Mt. SAC three-mile course twice, section preliminaries, followed by the section finals.

Before Williamson arrived at Sage Hill, it was McKeon conquering Mt. SAC and advancing to state. She set the stage for everyone else, even Miller.

“I didn’t even know what the state meet was all about until Katie was a freshman,” Miller said. “It was the first time we went just [with] an individual.”

Now Miller has an athlete in Williamson who can become the first Sage Hill runner to place in the top 10 at state. Top five is possible if you ask Williamson. Don’t bet against this 4.0 grade-point average student taking four advanced placement courses.

As fast as she sifts through her coursework, sometimes a couple of hours faster than her peers who she said, “stay up until midnight” to finish, she does the same on a cross country course, where she zooms past the competition.

The runner Williamson blew past down Mt. SAC’s final hill last week finished third at state last year. Her name is Amber Collier of Riverside Woodcrest Christian. After Williamson beat her by 11 seconds, Williamson said Collier told her, “Wow! Oh my gosh!”

“She was kind of surprised,” said Williamson, who was a bit shaken before the race.

The night before the section finals, Williamson said she dreamed about Collier and her powerhouse team, which won the team event and is on pace to improve on last year’s third-place showing at state.

“At prelims, they all ran together on the first mile and it was just me surrounded by a bunch of girls in purple,” said Williamson, trying to make a case as to why she dreamed about Woodcrest Christian. “I had a dream that I tied [Collier] and they gave her first because her team was better. Subconsciously that must be something that is going on in my mind.

“We were pretty much stride for stride until the top of the last hill. I just went for it. I felt like I was going to fall. I was running so fast down that hill [that] I completely lost control of my legs. I kind of really wasn’t thinking. I just knew that I had a stronger kick than her.”

DAVID CARRILLO PEÑALOZA may be reached at (714) 966-4612 or at [email protected].