State meet: 'She knows how to race'

At the Maryland state 4A track and field championship today, B-CC junior Ava Farrell had to be a little tired lining up for her two-mile race. She had just run a hard opening leg for the girls’ 4 x 800-meter race. The temperature hovered near 90 degrees.

And then the gun went off and Farrell faced a new degree of difficulty: A pack of five girls shot to the front and immediately created distance with the rest of the field.

Farrell, ranked ninth in the state, had a choice. She could either sprint to catch the lead pack or she could stay within herself and run her own race. She chose the latter and it made all the difference.

Watching from the sidelines at Morgan State University, B-CC Coach Chad Young was concerned. “As a coach you worry a little bit, and hope your athlete will stick with them, but Ava made the decision not to go crazy with the first group.”

So she ran with a group of eight girls in a second pack. “It seemed like they were fighting to lead the pack, fighting for position, and no one seemed to be comfortable, all trying to figure out what was going on,” Young said.

Meanwhile, two of the five girls from the front pack slipped back. Farrell and two Whitman runners broke out. “They hunted down the two girls in between the two groups, and with two laps to go, Ava was sitting in sixth or seventh place,” Young said.

Then, with one lap left, Farrell picked it up. She and one of the Whitman girls broke out and ran into fourth and fifth place. At the last turn, the two caught Anna Ryba of Whitman, who was second in the regional meet the week before. Down the stretch, Farrell had one more kick in her, finishing third in 11 minutes, 31 seconds. It was three seconds off her PR.

“I was really proud of Ava to make the decision to run her own race, and not worry about how fast everyone was going out,” Young said. “She knows her body, she knows how to race, and she knows she can work her way back into a race.”

The finishing time, Young said, was secondary to how well she competed. “She really did a great job,” he said. “It was her best race she has had so far as a high school runner. She has so much experience now, she has patience and she has confidence as well. We couldn’t have asked for much more.”

But, in fact, the team did ask for a little more: running the opening leg in the girls’ 4 x 800 meter team. The team, Young said, was well prepared. “They weren’t too nervous, they were well composed,” he said.

Still, the race tested them in ways they hadn’t experienced before.

Farrell took off to the front of the pack with a runner from Northwest. They were one-two in the handoff, Farrell finishing in 2:21, her fastest 800 ever.

In No. 2 position, sophomore Caroline Leuba had a challenging race. Her counterpart from Northwest took off and broke away. Leuba went out hard the first lap, but started to slightly lose her pace on the second lap, and she and three other girls handed off the baton at about the same moment. She ran a strong 2:28.

The next runner, sophomore Laura Nakasaka, also had to battle. “She showed a lot of guts on her leg,” Young said. “She was running with three or four girls, and it looked at one point like a few of the girls would break away and pass Laura. She had to make a choice: hang on the pace or back off. She decided to stay with the pack and fought and fought and fought the whole time. She looked like she was ready to hand off the baton halfway down the straightaway.” Nakasaka finished in 2:27, tying her fastest time ever.

She handed it off to sophomore Brittney Wade, who, Young said, “made it look easy. You knew right away we were going to get second. She looked so smooth, kind of casually passed all three girls.” Wade finished in 2:16. The team finished second in 9:34, its fastest performance of the year.

“I think the girls were pretty excited,” Young said. “It’s one of those things. They have been very consistent in their times, running 9:35 or 9:37 a number of times. You kind of expect that they will run that every time, but every single race is different. You are not guaranteed to run that same time. Anything can happen. You can get nervous on the big stage with the state meet. It was 90 degrees out there today. And they did so well. They were pretty proud of themselves.”

“I think it sunk in when they got their medal: They were the second fastest team in the state.”

The excitement isn’t over. The state meet continues Saturday and three competitions will have a B-CC entry. Farrell will run the mile and Wade will run the 400 and 800 meter races.