Rebecca Story finishes third at Foot Locker National Championship
Rebecca Story churned out another stellar performance on Saturday, this time on one of high school cross country's biggest stages.
Story, a junior at Christian Academy of Knoxville, clocked a 5K time of 17 minutes, 35.4 seconds to finish third at the prestigious Foot Locker Cross Country National Championship at Balboa Park's Morley Field in San Diego, Calif., on Saturday.
She's only the second girls distance runner from Tennessee to finish in the top three in the event, which began in 1979. Kathy Kroeger of Independence became the state's only winner in 2006.
"This is probably one of the biggest things I've ever done in my high school running career," Story told the News Sentinel by phone on Saturday. "The experience has been great. It's probably one of the most exciting cross country meets I've ever been to. I just reminded myself of all the training I've done, and it ended up being my best race of the season."
Story finished third behind Nevada Mareno (17:08.3) of Raleigh, N.C., and champion Claudia Lane (17:04.8) of Malibu, Calif. The meet featured 40 of the top girls distance runners in the country, with 10 participants coming from each of the four qualifying regions.
Niamh Schumacher, a Tennessee signee from the The King's Academy, finished 15th at 17:57.3. Schumacher advanced to the national finals after a blistering qualifying time of 17:24.5, which was fifth-fastest in the field entering the event.
"I was nervous for the race, said Schumacher, the Division II-A state champion. "I’ve never ran against so much competition before; my first national meet. I didn’t have a certain placing in mind, I just wanted to run my best race. Today didn’t go very well for me, I felt terrible the entire race and my legs were heavy, but I still finished All-American by finishing in the top 15. So I'm happy about that."
Story, the Class A/AA state champion, shook some early nerves to pick off the field on the figure-8 layout, which requires runners to complete two laps.
"I just wanted to get out, not be first but get out in the lead pack," Story said. "During the race, I didn't get out as fast as I wanted to, but I made it up and picked off people as I went. The other thing is hills, we've been working on hills for weeks.
You have to climb this hill on the course twice. The first time, I was with a lot of people, that's when I passed a lot of people. The second time, I was just maintaining because once you go up the hill, you're almost to the finish."
Contact Chris Thomas at chris.thomas@knoxnews.com. Follow him at twitter.com/christhomaskns