[Vision2020] California teen turns in cross country time called ‘greatest high school performance ever’

[Ted Moffett]

http://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?video_id=76345-Sarah-Baxter-1st-Girls-D1-2-Team-Sweepstakes-Mt-SAC-Cross-Country-Invite-2012&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+runnerspacerss+%28RunnerSpace+All+Content%29
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/california-teen-turns-cross-country-time-called-greatest-215330958.html
California teen turns in cross country time called ‘greatest high school
performance ever’

Cameron Smith<http://sports.yahoo.com/author/cameron-smith/;_ylt=AiK4.FypFuQ8p4HHmDSrnK8avMB_;_ylu=X3oDMTFjNjN1M2plBG1pdANCbG9nIEhlYWQgTkVXBHBvcwM2BHNlYwNNZWRpYUFydGljbGVIZWFk;_ylg=X3oDMTM3czVhYmtkBGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDNDFhYjNiNmItNGQzMi0zMjNlLTllMGQtNGY0ZTY1ODYzYWM0BHBzdGNhdANtb3JlfHJpdmFsc2hpZ2h8YmxvZwRwdANzdG9yeXBhZ2U-;_ylv=3>|
Prep
Rally <http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/highschool-prep-rally/> – 22 hours ago

A young cross country runner in California is tearing up courses at a pace
never seen before, leading some experts to already proclaim that she may
soon be considered one of the great prep runners of all time.

As reported by the Riverside Press-Enterprise, Simi Valley (Calif.) High
junior Sarah Baxter<http://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?video_id=76345-Sarah-Baxter-1st-Girls-D1-2-Team-Sweepstakes-Mt-SAC-Cross-Country-Invite-2012&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+runnerspacerss+%28RunnerSpace+All+Content%29>
won
the Mt. SAC Invitational with a blistering time of
16:00<http://www.pe.com/sports/high-school/hsg-sports/hsg-cross-country/hsg-cross-country-headlines/20121021-cross-country-great-oak-girls-win-at-mt.-sac.ece>.
That time obliterated a previous 11-year-old record on the three-mile
course -- widely considered one of the toughest in the state and possibly
the nation -- by some 16 seconds, leaving area writers and prep track
analysts completely agape at the time she turned in.

"[Baxter's 16-minute run is] the most amazing female individual performance
in U.S. prep annals," PrepCalTrack.com editor Rich Gonzalez, one of the
most respected track analysts on the West Coast, wrote on his
website<http://www.prepcaltrack.com/2012/10/20/sarah-baxter-raises-bar-into-the-stratosphere-1600/>
.

"Baxter, already owning the distinction of beating the strongest prep field
in U.S. history at last year's Nike Cross Nationals, applied an even
grander exclamation point on Saturday. Actually, it was the grandest:

"'Greatest High School Performance Ever.'*"*

For some sense of just how dominant Baxter's performance was, all one need
do is take a glance at her closest competitor. The second-place finisher at
the Mt. SAC Invitational was Santa Clarita (Calif.) Golden Valley High star
Chelsey Totten, who crossed the finish line at
17:08<http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/oct/23/baxters-record-run-at-mt-sac-is-a-true-crowd/>.
That's more than a minute after Baxter finished, across a span of just
three miles!

You can see just how long that was in real time in the video of the Mt. SAC
finish line directly below, as filmed by Christina Truong.

Baxter has been turning in blazing times in cross country and on the track,
but her performance at Mt. SAC was stunning even for her past success. Her
prior personal best was a time of 16:41, and she entered the invitational
with a goal of topping that time. According to the Ventura County Star, her
coach, Roger Evans, told her to try and run a
16:35<http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/oct/23/baxters-record-run-at-mt-sac-is-a-true-crowd/>
.

She bettered that by 35 seconds.

"Afterward there were people who said that that was the most remarkable
race, not only in high school cross country history, but that maybe it'll
go down in the annals [of all time], maybe like Billy Mills in the
[Olympic] 10,000 meters in Tokyo," Evans told the Star.

"It was something they thought insurmountable, that a girl could run that
fast."

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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