Shifting gears at the right time
Whittaker uses potent kick to win women's 1,500 meters in Mt. SAC Relays
WALNUT, Calif. – In an early-season clash between three of the more highly-regarded female collegiate middle-distance runners in the nation, Juliette Whittaker of Stanford University emerged victorious in the women’s invitational 1,500 meters in the Mt. San Antonio College Relays on Saturday evening.
Whittaker, a freshman who had placed second in the 800 in the NCAA indoor championships on March 11, sped past first-place Olivia Howell of the University of Illinois with 80 meters left in the race while on her way to a time of 4 minutes 12.49 seconds in the meet at Hilmer Lodge Stadium.
Howell, the NCAA indoor champion in the mile, placed second in 4:13.27, followed by Stanford freshman Roisin Willis (4:13.31), who had beaten Whittaker for the indoor 800 title.
“I just tried to stick on Olivia and then plan my kick,” Whittaker said. “Our coach told us, ‘Don’t go too soon and die.’ I think I was kind of worried about doing that, so I kind of waited until coming on the turn. I wanted to swing around and then pass with as much authority as possible.”
Howell a junior, had raced past senior Lauren Gregory of Arkansas in the final 20 meters of the NCAA indoor meet to win the mile title, but she just held off the fast-closing Willis for second place on Friday.
Although a pacesetter had been instructed to come through the first 800 in 2:16, the first two laps passed in an unofficial 2:18.8. The field was very bunched at that point and though it spread out a little over the next lap, there were still plenty of runners in contention when Howell went through 1,200 meters in 3:26.8.
She managed to maintain her lead down the backstretch and around the final turn, but Whittaker looked very comfortable while running off her shoulder and she struck quickly after entering the home straightaway.
“I felt good,” said Whittaker, who was selected as the Women’s Prep Athlete of 2022 by Track & Field News. “The first 200, we had gone out in 29, so I was like, Oh, that was a little too fast. So I wasn’t sure if that would hurt us later on in the race.”
Although Whittaker said she didn’t really have a time expectation when she entered the race, she did figure that if the lead pack went through the first two laps in 2:16, there was a good chance they would run a faster pace than that for the final 700 meters of the race. That’s what happened as the aforementioned 2:18.8 split at 800 meters projected to a time of 4:20.3 for the 1,500-meter distance.
“I’m really pleased with the time,” Whittaker said. “I was hoping for something like 4:15 or faster.”
Unlike Whittaker, Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura High School in California had a specific time in mind when she toed the line for the start of the invitational girls’ mile that was run 80 minutes after the women’s 1,500.
The time was 4:33.87, the national high school record in the girls’ mile that was set by sophomore Katelyn Tuohy of North Rockland High in Thiells, New York in 2018.
Engelhardt had set a national freshman record of 4:35.16 in the girls’ mile last year so it seemed logical to her that she should shoot for the national sophomore record — which also happens to be the national high school record — this season.
Saying she was hungry to take another shot at the record after running 4:36.26 in the Arcadia Invitational six days earlier, Engelhardt had a time of 67.3 seconds with three laps left in the race and a time of 2:18.4 with two laps to go.
She would have had to run the final 800 meters in about 2:15.4 to break Tuohy’s mark, but her last two laps took an unofficial 2:20.1 as she crossed the finish line in 4:38.53 to defeat second-place Gioana Lopizzo of La Costa Canyon High in Carlsbad by more than nine seconds.
It was the fourth time this year that the undefeated Engelhardt has broken 4:40 in the mile, and she admitted she is “learning how hard it is to get that record. It is very difficult.”
Nonetheless, she is confident the record will come with time. She is also glad she is getting better at handling disappointment when she falls short of a pre-race goal.
“The way I was at the beginning of the season, I would have gotten down on myself a little bit,” she said. “But I’m learning to just get over it and let it go.”
While Whittaker and Englehardt might have had the most noteworthy victories during the distance carnival portion of the meet on Friday, invitational races were also held in the men’s 1,500 and in the men’s and women’s 5,000.
Viktor Idhammar of Virginia Tech won the men’s 1,500 in 3:42.83 after running his final 400 meters in 57.49 seconds.
Veerle Bakker of the Netherlands won the women’s 5,000 in 15:39.42 after taking the lead with a little more than two kilometers left in the race.
Ryan Ford of the U.S. won the men’s 5,000 in 13:43.43 after running his final lap in 60.35 seconds to finish more than four seconds in front of Abdelhakim Abouzouhir of Eastern Kentucky, who ran 13:47.71.
In one of the most exciting races of the night, Long Beach Poly High edged Herriman (Utah), 7:44.90 to 7:45.07, in the boys’ 4 x 800 relay as Poly junior Xai Ricks ran an unofficial 1:52.0 on his anchor leg.
Ricks, a junior, ran a school record of 1:49.19 to win the 800 in the Azusa Pacific Meet of Champions Distance Classic on March 25 and lowered his personal best in the 400 to 47.13 while finishing fifth in the Arcadia Invitational.
He also ran s scorching 1:16.13 to win the 600 in the California Winter Championships meet at Arcadia High in early February. Although record keeping for that event has been a little sketchy through the years, Ricks’ performance is believed to be the fastest U.S. prep time ever run, indoors or outdoors.
While much of the daytime portion of the meet was devoted to competition in the college/open division, Marc Minichello of Georgia won the men’s elite javelin event with a throw of 80.62 meters (264 feet 6 inches).
Minichello won the NCAA title for Penn last year.