Isa Cunningham (11) planted her feet, readying herself for the high jump. With a deep breath, Cunningham took off in a sprint, propelling her body up and over the 1.63 meter bar before landing on the mat to capture first place, May 16.
Cunningham secured first in high jump and fifth in the 100 meter hurdles at the San Diego Section DivisionI track and field championships at Del Norte High School. Westview placed 12th among 28 high schools across San Diego county with 33 athletes qualifying to move on to San Diego Sectionals.
During her events, Cunningham said that she felt anxious stepping into the starting blocks. Those worries, however, pushed her to excel in her events.
“I was definitely nervous, but I think nerves are really good for a sport, especially for track and field,” she said. “You want that pressure, [because] you force yourself to go faster.”
Leading up to the meet, Cunningham said she focused on perfecting her technique for both events she competed.
“In hurdles, I definitely focused on running off the hurdle quickly and sprinting in between rather than striding, which I tend to do,” Cunningham said. “For high jump, I focused on translating my speed up into the air, so I could get over the bar instead of soaring across it.”
Two other students moving on to sectionals were Parker McDevitt (12), who placed third in the 3200 meters, and Cameron Iverson (11), who placed seventh in the 800 meters.
McDevitt said his focus for the race was to qualify for the next round and move on to states. He worked on maintaining speed during his laps to place in the top five.
“I was trying to take it even, because next week is the most important race for me, where I’m trying to qualify for the state championship,” McDevitt said. “I just had a race plan going in, where [I was] going to go out in the first mile easily, and then in the second mile, I [would] start speeding up to simulate having a faster finish.”
The long-distance racers practiced sprinting the last leg of their race before heading into the finals. One of their workouts included a two-mile run, followed by four 200-meter sprints. According to McDevitt, these practices helped set them up for success in their events.
“In the championships, you want to be able to really sprint that last 200,” McDevitt said. “And that workout really prepared me for the race because me and [Iverson] were both able to finish really fast.”
Iverson said that the team performed well individually in the finals compared to last year.
“Everyone collectively did really well, like our 4×800 squad,” Iverson said. “Now they’re going to finals, which is pretty unexpected and really good of them. From what I’ve seen from my other teammates, everybody just did really well, better than what they were expecting.”
Now, as the athletes gear up for sectionals, they face student competitors from across all three San Diego divisions.
“I’m seeing what everyone else has run from all three divisions now that we’re competing against them,” McDevitt said. “I’m trying to plan out how the race will go by knowing what people’s strengths are, because there are some people who have a slower personal record than I do, but then they’re able to close the finishing lap way faster than I could. I need to know how far I need to be ahead of each person in order to guarantee my spot. The race plan going into next week is to just go hard from beginning to end and finish top three.”
Cunningham said she will use her sectional results as a reminder to keep working and perfecting her skills.
“I know that I can still improve, because I did improve this year from last year,” she said. “If I don’t go on to the next rounds, that’s fine because that means that other people are also doing really well. If they’re able to improve like that, then next year I will also be able to.”
