Page 9 - Sanger Herald 9-20-18 E-edition

SangerSports
SANGER HERALD * PAGE 1B * THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2018
Sanger 7th-grader gets the attention of water polo elite
Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
About a year and a half ago, Kate Frost, 12, injured her shoulder.
“I used to be a swimmer,” she said.
The damage proved significant enough that it dampened her plans to pursue competitive swimming, which she had taken up at the age of 7. But the injury also led her to an epiphany, one that had her choose another sport played by her older brother Ben, a sophomore at Sanger High.
Water polo.
Kate took to it easily and shows such promise that she’s drawn the attention of Adam Krikorian, coach of the U.S. women’s national water polo team. Krikorian coached the team to gold medals in the Olympic Games in 2012 and 2016.
Krikorian tweeted a photo of himself with Kate, saying, “Meet Kate. She’s 11 and just told me she(‘s) going to play for me one day. Go USA!”
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Kate Frost hustles away from a competitor recently.
Sanger is no stranger to its water polo players getting attention for their athleticism. In 2015, Apaches Megan Greenwood and Maci Layne made the Olympic Development Program, getting named to the Central California zone team. They played in the national championships in Riverside that spring. The pair currently play for the Fresno State water polo program.
Apaches coach Hillary Boos regularly leads her team to be one of the best in the central San Joaquin Valley and the state.
Kate plays for Washington Academic Middle School’s team, which includes sixth, seventh and eighth-graders. Her coach, Kristin Ehrle, said she’s talented. Ehrle talked about her star player after her Warriors lost 10-8 to Reyburn Intermediate, a feeder to Clovis East High School, on Sept. 11.
“She’s really on top,” Ehrle said. “She’s obviously a good player and person. She’s doing it (playing
water polo) year round, not just in season. She’s smart. She listens well. And she helps teach my (other) players a lot.”
Ehrle said she has a young team, half of them sixth-graders. Kate is in seventh.
Kate has played for Royal Water Polo Academy in Clovis for the past year and a half, and she’s also playing for So Cal Water Polo through November.
“We drive down on weekends for her to practice and play in tournaments with them,” Nicole said of So Cal. “Her Coach is Melissa Seidemann, who is a two-time Olympic Gold medalist. Kate also works with Ed Rogers, who is the program director, and Natalie Seidemann, who is Melissa’s younger sister and plays for UC Irvine.”
Kate is 5-foot-9 and her mom expects her to continue to grow.
Nicole said Kate’s workouts include “resistance bands, light weights for shoulders, yoga,
swimming and a lot of leg work.” She said Kate uses a 5 gallon water jug and fills it about three-quarters full, holds it upside and does “egg beaters” with her legs to keep herself and the container aloft until it’s empty.
“She learned this from her brother who can do the jug full,” Nicole said. “She wrestles and fights with him in the pool.”
Maddie Musselman, a member of the UCLA water polo team and the 2016 Olympics team, tweeted a photo of herself and Kate that was basically the same as that tweeted by Krikorian earlier. “Meet Kate,” she wrote. “She’s now 12 and I got to coach her FIRST ... ha! Go USA!”
Krikorian responded to the Twitter post with one word: “Jealous!”
The reporter can be contacted by email at sangerheraldsports@gmail. com or by phone at the Herald at (559) 875-2511.
And Kate said she’s determined to get there. “I want to play for the national team in my senior year and the Olympics in 2024,” she said.
This summer, Kate played in the USA Water Polo National Junior Olympics in Palo Alto. “She scored four goals from 8-10 meters out in 2 minutes,” wrote Nicole Frost, Kate’s mother, in an email. “In another game she scored at 10 meters with 6 seconds left to tie the game and go into a shoot out.”
Kate’s performance got her named a USA Water Polo All American honorable mention.
Kate also was chosen to play with a zone team in the USA Olympic Development Program National Championships in March. The competition involved the top 250 14-year-olds in the country. At the time, Kate was 11. She was also picked to attend the National Team Selection Camp, which is an opportunity to try out for the national team.
Apache runners score big at Avocado
By Mike Nemeth
Sanger Herald
Nia Lamas crossed the finish line about 25 seconds after another ninth-grader, Miliana Perez from Clovis North, got the win in the varsity race.
Lamas broke the Sanger record for the Avocado Lake 3-mile course and said she decided to sprint the final mile. She said she knew catching Perez was increasingly unlikely due to the lead the other girl had developed. Lamas said the cheers of the home crowd at the Sanger XC Invitational on Sept. 14 gave her a boost.
“It helped a lot,” she said. “I could hear my friends, my family, my coach. It’s like I’ve got all their energy inside me. That gave me the courage to sprint (to the finish.)”
Lamas, in second, posted an 18:25.03 minutes to Perez’s 18:04.20. The next Sanger finisher was Kayley Cardenas in eighth with 19:55.57. One hundred twenty-eight girls finished the race.
And in the boys junior varsity race, sophomore Benjamin Awad scored a first with 17:32.22 minutes and freshman Jaden Terrones a second with 17:59.32. Third for Sanger was junior Ethan Hunt with 18:34.52 and 10th overall. All three scored personal best times.
For Terrones it was a victory.
“My first cross country race ever,” he said. “Great feeling pushing myself.”
Terrones said he followed closely behind another runner for part of the race and passed when he found
Mike Nemeth / Sanger Herald
Nia Lamas, center, battles for the lead in girls' varsity at the Sanger XC Invitational at Avocado Lake last week.
pushed harder,” she said. She finished with 14:41.86.
Senior Anna Yang placed first for Sanger in the 2.1 mile girls’ junior varsity with 14:20.21. “I did better than what I expected,” she said. Her time was a personal best.
Following on her heels were juniors Karisma Rodriguez, also with a best time at 14:37.92, and Megan Payton with 15:32.47.
Assistant coach Maria Lopez, who focuses much of her efforts on the slower runners, said gains have been made by many of them. “They’re improving so much,” she said.
Lopez said when everybody was new and the season first began, they’d all be quiet during training runs. “Now they cheer each other on, and that helps,” she said. “They got encouraged. Now they talk and bond.”
And before the varsity race, Cardenas explained that the girls gather for a pre-race prayer. “Each race we try to get our girls together,” she said. “(We say something like,) ‘God, give us the strength to pull through this race and place as you wish.’ We have different little prayers.”
Cardenas said she also felt under the weather and fought for her place.
And Hunt, in the boys’ JV race, said, “I had a really good start.” He said he slowed on the back side of the lake but felt like he could have kept up with Awad.
And Eddie Robles, Mohamed Salas and Lorenzo Cabellos, who graduated from the program, returned to help with the race.
an opening.
Awad dubbed it a good
race but felt he could have improved his personal best time even more had he run with a faster group. Awad has run varsity but missed his last race.
Three juniors from Clovis North nabbed the first three spots in the varsity boys’ contest: Isaiah Galindo ran first with 15:28.12, Nicholas Carter second with 15:29.53 and Joshua Ochoa third with 16:01.33. First for Sanger and in 10th place overall was sophomore Danny DeLoera 16:26.14. He was followed by teammates (and brother) David DeLoera, a freshman, in 16th with 16:35.99 and Jayden Olea, a sophomore, in 18th with 16:38.50. Olea and David
earned personal records. About 1,000 runners from 37 schools from across the central San Joaquin Valley competed in the event, driving out scenic Piedra Road to the Fresno County park. Sanger’s junior varsity and freshman/ sophomore girls scored firsts in team scores as did the junior varsity boys. Varsity girls placed second, closely behind leader Clovis North, and varsity boys
placed third.
“Coaches are very proud
of the accomplishments of all our athletes and are looking forward to continue with a great and fun season,” said coach Sean Marzolf in an email.
The county spent several months over the winter removing about 800 trees
from the park that had been damaged or destroyed by the extended drought. Temperatures for the event remained relatively cool and lawns looked a healthy green for the event. The revamp of the grounds got a thumbs up from Sanger High athletic director Brian Penner.
But not all was perfect. Some Sanger runners battled illness.
“I did alright although I did slip a little on the rocks on the back of Avocado,” said Jahari Garcia, a sophomore. She placed second for Sanger and ninth overall in the freshman/sophomore girls’ race, which was 2.1 miles, with 13:48.33. “And I intend to do better at Woodward,” she said.
The Golden Eagle Invitational is Friday at the Fresno park.
Freshman Diana Garcia placed first for Sanger and seventh overall in the race with Jahari, getting a personal best 13:36.14. Sophomore Haley Witrago was 13th with 14:16.91 and Alondra Huerta 15th with 14:21.81. Huerta, also a sophomore, said she was sick all week.
“Tiring at the end,” Diana Garcia said, describing the race. “I started to go fast at the beginning so I could get a lead. Then I settled down. Half a mile from the end I started the kick.”
Melody Salazar, a freshman in the same race, said she started too fast. “Then a bunch of people started passing me, so I
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