IMPROVING BY LEAPS AND BOUNDS

Cross country runners know the town of Angel’s Camp for the annual pilgrimage to nearby Calaveras Country Fairgrounds during the first weekend in November. For every SJS harrier, the road to Fresno goes through Frogtown. But Angel’s Camp is not only home to the SJS subsections, but also home to the highest-ranked SJS girls cross country team (by division) in the state right now - the Bret Harte Bullfrogs.

Now a town of about 3500 people, Angel’s Camp was founded by a man named Henry Angel in 1848 who decided that operating a trading post made more sense than gold mining.1 Sixteen years later Mark Twain wrote his successful short story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" which gave Angel’s Camp further identity. A frog jumping contest is still held every May at the county fair and this year’s winner, Lisa Can Do, leaped a whopping 21 feet 4 ¼ inches.

But let’s not jump to any conclusions about the Bret Harte cross country program. At the finish of the recent Bret Harte Invitational, we went straight to the source and had a chat with Keith Maurer about the ‘State of the Bullfrog’. Maurer has been the head jockey of Bret Harte distance running for give or take ten years. At Leigh H.S. in San Jose, Maurer was trained by a man named Homer Lattimer who won three Iowa state XC titles in the 50’s2. At Leigh High, Maurer and his co-runners were ranked first in the nation in the 1973 two-mile and three-mile postal championships - long before Kinney, Foot Locker, and Nike got involved with the type of championship meets that we know today.

While the Bullfrogs may not have any national titles, the school has had great local success in running. Overall, Bret Harte athletics have won 24 section titles and all but six of them have come in cross country or track. The girls are responsible for 14 of those: nine in cross country (’88, ’89, ’95, ’96, ’97, ’99, ’00, ’01, and ’06) and five in track (’92, ’94, ’95, ’01, ’04). The ’88 and ’89 girls cross country teams went on to win the state title. Since the CIF state meet started in 1987, SJS girls teams have only won four state titles, and Bret Harte is responsible for half of them.

DyeStatCal: The Frogtown Invitational just ended a few moments ago. What’s the best thing and worst thing about running a meet?
Coach Maurer: The worst thing today was the weather and the power. (The meet was affected by rain during the varsity boys small school and a power outage on the stage.) The best part is that it’s over. That and that we hope everyone went home happy and there weren’t any unhappy coaches and athletes.

DyeStatCal: Bret Harte has a deep tradition in cross country. Can you go into some depth on what the sport has meant to the school and how it happened?
Coach Maurer: Tony O’Geen is who really started it back in 1973 or maybe even before that. In the late 80’s he started getting a program that was going well and he was blessed with some good athletes. The first state meet I believe was ’87. There were no divisions (at section level) and the girls were 4th in the section and 5th in the state (Division 3) and definitely the best small school around. The next two years in ’88 and ’89 they were state champions. We had, not a big team, but quality runners.
The boys at the same time, a year or two later, became good and they were 3rd in the state two years in a row… in ’89 and ‘90. They probably should have been state champs the second year, but the 3rd runner didn’t do what he was supposed to do, but that happens. And then they graduated. (It was) right about the time I started helping Tony. (Tony) had been teaching for 37 years. I was doing most of the coaching and training and he was doing the administrative.
It’s hard to say how long I’ve head coach because it’s been sort of a blend from going from assistant coach to co-coach to head coach to finally he said “I’m gone. It’s all yours. You can do it.” … So I would say I’ve been head coach for probably about ten years. We’ve kept a strong tradition with the girls. We won six out seven section titles in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. The boys have been good but not great. We’re excited now because this is the first time we’ve had both boys and girls be strong.

DyeStatCal: Up here in the gold country, it’s a bit different from suburban and city running. What are some of the advantages you think you might have being here in Bret Harte?
Coach Maurer: The hills definitely help us on hill courses. We don’t do very well on flat courses. As far as heat goes, it’s hotter up here than in the valley. It really is. Our favorite workouts are ‘run to the creek’. What I do is I make sure it’s long enough and to get there they have to run the extra miles to get to the creek. They seem to buy into it.
I would like to see them do more summer running, but we’re really spread out from Bear Valley to Copperopolis, a 100-mile stretch. It’s hard to get them together and it’s hard for them to run on their own when it’s 100 out. We try and meet once a week in the summertime. The last few years we’ve been doing a running camp. This year we went to Point Reyes and that really gets ‘em jacked up and ready to go.

DyeStatCal: What is your philosophy to laying out a season? Race often? Race sparingly? Send some to one meet, some to another?
Coach Maurer: We do a lot of racing. I think it’s important to get the experience. We run through a lot of them, like the league practice meets. We run hard Monday, Tuesday, and we race on Wednesday and it’s kind of a time trial, almost a tempo run. And then we’ll back off for the invitationals. Sometimes maybe we race too much but the kids seem to enjoy it and that’s what’s fun. The more races they do the more they get the feeling of pace.

DyeStatCal: The girls think that they could have a better team than last year and with losing Brooke Lawrence, that’s saying something. What are they seeing that makes them think that way?
Coach Maurer: I think last year when we had three freshmen, two on varsity, they were green. They didn’t know what they had. We went to Stanford and took 2nd place and it was ‘Wow, we’re good, but we’re still freshman’. We knew that we could do well and we won sections. It wasn’t easy. Colfax was right there and Riverbank is always good. And it pretty much came together for us at state. That was neat. We hadn’t been up there (on the podium) since the early ‘90’s.
We’ve lost two runners (for this year), Brooke Lawrence and our number four runner, Krista Becker. When Katy O’Conner faltered with the asthma thing, Krista was the one that came through and said ‘”C’mon girls, let’s go, let’s go”. She grabbed their hands and pulled them through with a half-mile to go. The new girl Dana DeCoste, who we knew was a good runner but didn’t run last year, she has really filled in that space that Krista Becker had.

DyeStatCal: And on the boys’ side, give us some insight why the team is improved.
Coach Maurer: We had some good runners a couple years ago like Eric Aardal and unfortunately we didn’t make it to state. We had an injury. We lost by one point. Amador beat us. Then we had a weak class. We were sixth or seventh in the section, that’s kind of where we’ve been. Christian Brothers have always been beating us. The next year we got some freshman guys, three freshmen on the varsity but we couldn’t quite put it together. They were still a little young. But still with these freshmen, for the first time we were really competitive.
Matt (Airola) is just plain talented. 4:26 as a freshman, you don’t get that too often. I haven’t seen him training really hard, but this last week or so he’s really starting to push the workouts. His cousin Travis is our team leader. He didn’t run today, he’s got some quad issues.

DyeStatCal: How about somebody in the girls top seven and the boys top seven that has terrific up-side?
Coach Maurer: Sydney Aardal. Sydney Aardal has done a fantastic job this year. She was running sophomore and kind of mid-pack. She’s strong. She’s working out hard. And she’s the one whose made a difference for the team right now.
For the boys Clint Eastman is the one who’s really impressed me. I think Clint Eastman is the guy who’s really making the difference. He keeps improving. He has this inner thigh pull… so we’re easing up on him. So he’s one I’m looking forward to getting back and running strong and he can make a difference.
The other girl is Dana DeCoste. I tried to cajole her last year but it was ‘No, no, I don’t want to do it’ and this year she’s been there from day one. And her parents are supportive. That’s one thing I have is the greatest parents. They do the snack shack, cleaning up with garbage bags today…

DyeStatCal: Last question. What’s the best thing about coaching here at Bret Harte?
Coach Maurer: Besides winning? (laughs) Just the camaraderie. The trips we go on. We went to Tahoe last week. We got these cabins and the next day (after the North Tahoe meet) we went on a trail run… spent hours on the lake swimming and playing Frisbee golf. I get to be a kid again. I’ve never quite grown up yet.
(Mark Waelty and Anthony Reynosa also help coach the Bret Harte cross country team.)

The Bret Harte varsity boys have their strongest team in years. At their own invitational they had two runners in before Christian Brothers’ #1, but then the excellent depth of CB enabled the Falcons to subdue the Bullfrogs 40-80. Bret Harte was racing without Travis Airola and fully healthy, they hope to not only make the state meet, but give CB a run for the section crown. One runner making quite an impact is Derek Avrit. Avrit has some great running heritage. His parents were both All-Americans at Cal Poly-SLO. Father Doug was a 2:13 marathoner and mom Amy ran a 4:36 mile, so if any of that rubs off Bret Harte has nothing to worry about in the 1-2-3 slots. Coach Maurer’s October homework assignment is moving his 4-7 up closer towards his 1-3.
We gathered these six Bret Harte guys on the bleachers at the fairground and fired a few running questions at them: sophomores Matt Airola, Charlie Gomes, Derek Avrit, junior Jacob Baugher, and seniors Clint Eastman and Travis Airola.

DyeStatCal: Let’s talk about today’s race. Matt we’ll start with you. Tell us who challenged you, what your strategy was, and if you executed it just the way you wanted it.
Matt: It was a good race. I got our there pretty fast. I think I went out a little too fast because I was kind of dying on the back here. But I didn’t know who was actually going to keep up but the Livingston kid did, but it was a good race. The rain was pretty sweet. I liked the rain.
Derek: I knew we had to go after Christian Brothers because they have a pretty good team. They were in a pack early and there were a couple ahead and a couple behind me. Luckily I was able to pick them off one by one and I beat their first guy so I was happy about that. It gave me some hope for the section meet that we might actually have a chance if everyone’s running well.
Jacob: Well Travis didn’t run today but when he does run he’s usually 4th or 5th on the team. For Christian Brothers all seven of their runners were between our third and fourth. So that basically puts the pressure on me and Clint who are usually running together back there to step up at sections and subsections.
Travis: And Riverbank will be right there.

DyeStatCal: What image does the cross country program give to the other students here at Bret Harte?
Clint: For me I’m a first year runner so from the outside looking in, Bret Harte cross country is expected to win. We’ve just always been good. ‘Cross country won again. Oh, they’re supposed to.’
Russell: Most people don’t really respect us that much. They don’t really think we’re athletes. Because the football players…they think they’re all buff. But there’s a football player on our team that played last year and he says we work ten times harder than they do and that we’re in awesome shape.
Travis: Well I have a different perspective I guess. I think there’s some envy a little bit. I hear ‘I can’t run 8 miles. Cross country sounds like fun but I can’t run.’ So they’re impressed a little bit with our ability to run all the time. But they don’t see it as a normal sport kind of thing.

DyeStatCal: Why do you run instead of doing a different sport?
Matt: It’s the best because it’s … cool. (laughing from the other guys)
Travis: It’s co-ed and no other sports are. It’s always the funnest. There’s lots of downtime. The race takes 20 minutes and we’re here seven hours. Basketball’s fun but…
DyeStatCal: The girls are playing somewhere else.
Travis: Yeah. Co-ed’s more fun and the trips are fun. And we’re good at it. We win and winning’s always fun.
Russell: I run because my sister was a runner and my freshman year she said ‘You should run’. I tried it and it was so much fun. We work incredibly hard. But it’s worth the effort to go everywhere we go. I feel great after I’m in shape.
Jacob: You know where we live in the foothills it’s always cool for practicing. It’s cool with all the trails. It’s cool to be by yourself and you can run wherever you want.

DyeStatCal: How about a glimpse on what a typical training week might be like?
Jacob: On Monday it’s usually our hard day because our coach always tells us to run on the weekend but you can imagine that a lot of people don’t. So Mondays are double practices - it’s always a longer workout or a harder workout. Days before meets are always a little easier. So if we’ve been having a real hard week and it’s Friday and we don’t have a meet scheduled for the weekend, we’ll take a Frisbee out and start playing that.
Russell: To make us unique, all the valley courses, they don’t have the pleasure of working hills and we do some pretty intense hill workouts, repeats and stuff. We incorporate that a lot. It builds a lot of strength in your legs.

DyeStatCal: Let’s go in a circle, and I want you to say the running attribute of the guy next to you that you admire the most.
Matt on Travis: Travis is fast. He even looks fast when he’s not even running. He’s fun to run with. He’s like a comedian.
Travis on Charlie: Well my friend Charlie here, he could have definitely won the frosh/soph race but I like that fact that he stepped it up and ran in the ‘rain race’. He could run the two mile and get his name in the paper, but instead he runs and steps it up.
Charlie on Russell: I like Russell because he’s always aggressive in the front. Right from the start he’s always pushing it. And it’s fun just trying to keep up with him. He comes up behind you and now it’s ‘Man I have to go fast again’ so he’s always right there.
Russell on Derek: Well this Derek kid, when he was a freshman I was strong in my sophomore year and he came up and beat me and I started envying him a little bit. But this kid’s a good runner to keep up with. If I can keep sight of him, that would be awesome.
Derek on Jacob: Jacob never goes out and has a race where he doesn’t run it well. He runs it to what he knows he can do. He doesn’t kill himself early. He doesn’t go out too slow and have to really catch up. He’s a really good racer.
Jacob on Clint: You know this is Clint’s first year racing cross country ever and so his first race which was at Frogtown this season and it was really cool to see him get seventh or whatever place he got. I know that as the season goes on – him and me, we definitely practice well together and it’s going to be cool to run in races next to each other.
Clint on Matt: He’s really fast like his cousin. Super consistent and a comedian too. Just a great guy to be around, you know. He’s a great kid to run with… a super athlete and a great runner.

DyeStatCal: OK guys, what’s the best-case scenario for Bret Harte this year?
Jacob: Win state. If the other teams all break their legs. (laughing)
Russell: We can do really well at sections. I think we can power it at state. It’s really competitive for guys but we can do pretty well since we have a lot of talent.

The Bret Harte varsity girls edged past Sara Howard and Colfax by 8 points last year in the SJS D4 section finals and then took 3rd place at state – the only SJS team to claim a podium spot in Fresno. This year they’ve had some injuries here and there but have still managed to win all their invitationals so far and have earned an early season #3 statewide ranking in Division 4.
We had a chat with senior Katie Stennette, juniors Sydney Aardal and Sara Mikesell, sophomores Katy O’Conner, Dana DeCoste, and Erin Nanik, and freshman Haley Heryford. In a mini-preview of the D4 section finals, the Bullfrogs were fresh off a close 3-point win over up-and-coming Christian Brothers in the varsity small schools category.

DyeStatCal: The girls program here is as strong and as decorated as most girls teams in the section. Are you aware of the tradition and is any of it passed on to you?
Sara - The tradition is big. We’ve had a lot of great legacies come through - Eric Aardal, Seanna Martin, Jill Semenza - so there’s all these great runners to look up to so we want the legacy to continue so we work our hardest to try to prove that we can be as good as them. If we were to run as the whole team if we were able to combine all the great runners together then we would be able to compete with them. So I guess the legacy is like we try to keep it alive and show them that Bret Harte is a power and we are a threatening force.
Sydney: My older brother was Eric Aardal and he ran 3 or 4 years ago and we went on to state his varsity years and he was really good. He went onto Santa Barbara. He’s now #5 on their team this year so it’s cool having my older brother talk to me about the races. It’s pretty cool.

DyeStatCal: Give us just a hint about how Coach Maurer has prepared you so far this year.
Sydney: Start long. We do a lot of long runs at the beginning.
Erin: Right now he keeps saying how we got to get the mileage in…get the numbers rising. Then later on we’ll start working on the speed.
Katie S: He’s really chill in a way that doesn’t let us slack off but he’s not overbearing either. It’s kind of a happy medium. He still wants us to have fun.

DyeStatCal: Tell us how cross country compares to other sports you’ve tried.
Erin: One thing I like about it is the team bonding a lot closer in cross country. I play soccer in the spring and we’re always at each other’s necks for some thing or another. Most people don’t realize that cross country is a major team sport. Like I probably wouldn’t have made it to state last year without my team.
Katy O: It’s a really mental sport, you have to always believe you can do it. When we do hill repeats, those are hard but this team is great. We just like to have fun. We bring our Frisbees and later on we might play that African soccer game… Rah Rah Hip Hari.
Sydney: (Explaining the game….) They go for really, really long runs that go for days and they’ll take this ball with them and there’ll be teams. There are groups that are teams. We split up varsity boys and varsity girls so that the teams are all even. And we do the Frogtown course. We go and we try to kick the other teams ball away and if it goes over a fence the game stops until you get it, because that’s kind of cheap.

DyeStatCal: Please share some of your goals for this season. What are you trying to do this year?
Erin: This year personally what I’ve realized is that this year’s team seems a lot stronger. In the past meets, I think it was at Amador, we were looking at the times and we had 3 girls in before Brooke’s time which is pretty amazing. Both Sara and Katy are improving this year and now that we have Dana running that’s definitely helping a lot. Maurer’s big goal is that he thinks we can go for the state title. Don’t really want to jinx that yet.
Sara: I think as a team we can win sections again, obviously win league. We are definitely a competitor for state again. A lot of the teams, they’ve lost some key runners also. But I think that since we are such a young team we’ll still be competitive even next year. And it’s nice that Dana replaced Brooke, so we have that strong ‘3’. And we have a strong ‘4’ and ‘5’ so I think the team’s goal is to be a strong competitor at state, and I think that we can be. I think that we can go as a boys team and a girls team.
Katie S: My biggest goal is that since this is the first year I’ve actually made varsity and I’ve been running four years, so my goal is to be able to keep up with all you girls. Today I know there was a gap, but it’s a good goal to have to close that gap between 6 and 7.

DyeStatCal: We need to hear from the freshman. How has it been to be a freshman on this good team?
Haley: The girls were very welcoming, like we already have cheers and claps like little special things already and it’s not even halfway into the season, so they’re very welcoming.

DyeStatCal: Probably 80% or so of the DyeStatCal readers are from larger metro areas. Maybe you could tell us what’s different about living in small towns like you do.
Sara: I was talking to Brooke and she was talking about college about how cell phones are important because people in big cities don’t understand – like we have people that span from more than an hour away. So up here cell phones are really important to get in touch with someone
Erin: The only movie theater in the whole county is in Angel’s Camp. It’s a small theater compared to most of those in the big cities. And that’s about really the only thing we have to do in this whole county. We have a couple bowling alleys in neighboring counties but those are pretty far away.
Sydney: Most of the kids at our school at least do a sport. And if you don’t have a sport, you attend a sport, you do band, or you have something through the school. I had a 3-week period last year between basketball where I went straight home after school and my grades were actually better but there’s that weird, awkward stage where you don’t know what you’re supposed to do. You do a sport, you hang out with friends, you go swimming, you just keep busy.

DyeStatCal: Katy, you had a great race up in North Tahoe, only a few seconds behind Stephany Uriostegui. What was that weekend like?
Katy O: I think all of us could have done better, but we all did our best. Some were hurt, like Sara, and Dana’s filling in the gap, and Chelsea’s been hurt most of the season, but we’re all trying really hard. But it was a lot of fun up in Tahoe…cabins, and hanging out, and going into Tahoe.

DyeStatCal: OK, time to pat yourself on the back a little bit. What’s been your best race so far?
Dana: A lot of people said they liked Tahoe but that was not my favorite. I think my best race was actually today. My placing was 4th, but I just felt good out there. I ran my best.
Sara: My best race would have to have been last year at Tahoe. I took 2nd and I felt so good. I was just really confident that race and everything was working good. And this year, probably the race today because I PR’d on the course and it felt good to be back after being hurt in the spring.
Erin: My best race overall was probably state last year. It was my best time even though I was so far back and I’m not used to being so far behind the lead. It was definitely different but it was definitely my best time on a 5k course.
Haley: I think I did best at my first varsity race and that was in Jackson (Amador). I just felt I did very well, I think I got 8th.
Sydney: I think my best race was this year in Tahoe. I got 11th and I just felt really strong. I ran with Chelsea, I don’t if my time was really good but it felt really good.
Katy O: I’m not sure which one was best. I liked L.A. a lot (Mt. SAC). It wasn’t exactly a fun race but I did good in it. But I liked Tahoe a lot last year. That was one of my best races.
Katie S: My favorite race was my sophomore year at Mt. SAC. I was feeling really good that day, which is funny because my last mile was terrible because I had to go the bathroom really badly. I never had to pee that much in my life. But I think my time was the best I’ve ever done.

1 http://www.angelscamp.com/bhist.htm
2 http://www.iahsaa.org/06_XC_Statbook.pdf

 

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