Sage Holter Finishes Third at So Cal Championships

The day of the So Cal Regionals dawned cool and crisp in Bakersfield on Friday, November 4th. Temperatures in the high 30's greeted the teams as they arrived at the Kern County Soccer park for the second time this season. 28 teams and as many as 15 individuals had qualified out of their conference championship races for the opportunity to toe the line at the CCCAA State Championships in 2 weeks time. By race time, the day had emerged sunny with temperatures right around 50 degrees; perfect cross country racing temps!

 

As the Western State Conference Champion, SBCC's Sage Holter toed the line as one of the favorites. She, along with the 4 other conference champions automatically place themselves at the top of the field to punch their ticket to the State Championships. While some of the women were also racing for a top team placing, Holter was the Vaqueros sole representative, so she was able to focus on her own strategy and what would be best for herself on the day. 

 

Early in the race, Marykay Schwab of Goldenwest College, undefeated in community college races this season took to the lead and never looked back, pulling ahead of the field steadily. Most of the field had raced here 6 weeks ago at the So Cal Preview meet, but Sage missed that race due to her academic obligations. Not to let that hinder her, Sage ran with a lead pack of 6 women at the mile mark passing in 5:56. From here she took the downhill, challenging herself to run as fast as she could which found her and Hannah Brown of Mt SAC pulling away from the others into 2nd and 3rd place. After passing 2 miles at 11:44 Brown began to steadily open a gap on Sage who was also opening a gap on the rest of the field. Schwab would go on to win the race in 17:35 with Brown 2nd in 18:06. Finishing 9 seconds later was Sage in a new 5K personal best time of 18:15. This was the fastest time by a SBCC runner on the Bakersfield course by over 1 minute. Sage also opened up additional ground on her WSC foes showing her improvement as the conclusion of the season nears. 

 

Sage said after the race "I'm really happy with how I raced. I want to be able to PR and improve on my past self. I'm doing better at remaining mentally positive in the last parts of the race and I was able to finish strongly here. [At State] if Brown is in front of me at the end, I will be motivated to go after her, but my primary goal is to PR."

 

The CCCAA State Championships will be held at Woodward Park, Fresno on Saturday, November 19th.