Powers era ends at Foot Locker meet
WALNUT — A streak of dogged determination flashed across her face as she hit the stadium track at Mt. San Antonio College.
Somewhere in those final 250 meters of the Foot Locker West Regionals, Corona del Mar High’s Raquel Powers recognized that she must finish strong.
She sprinted as fast as she ever had down the final straightaway, perhaps in an effort to do right by the sport and the program that has given so much to her and her family.
“It’s basically what our family bonds over, running,” Powers said. “My mom ran. It’s kind of like a running legacy. She ran in high school and college, and so she raised all three of us sisters to be runners.”
The Powers family first arrived at Corona del Mar in 2007 when the eldest daughter, Melanie, entered as a sophomore. Ashlee, the middle child, came along the next year.
The legacy of the Powerses at CdM started there, with Raquel’s older sisters making it to the Nike Cross Nationals in 2009.
Ashlee says that the CdM program opened the door to possibilities that the Powers sisters otherwise would not have had, including front-line educations.
“Without the program, we wouldn’t be able to go straight to college right out of high school,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to afford college.”
“It’s kind of like the standard. Run for college. Coach [Bill] Sumner has done that for us. He’s sent all of us, and we’re now trying to send Raquel.”
Melanie spent her college career at Wake Forest. Ashlee ran for Southern Methodist University her freshman year before spending the last three at UCLA.
In the loaded field of the Foot Locker Girls’ Seeded race, Raquel finished in the middle of the pack on Saturday. She ran 19:33, placing 65th out of the 155 runners.
Malibu’s Claudia Lane won the race in 17:20, and the experienced CdM ace knew that she would be the pace-setter.
“I knew that she was going to take this one,” Raquel Powers said of Lane. “I thought that she was going to run Nike Cross Nationals since she did so well at state.”
Ashlee was seen camping out on Mt. SAC’s famed hilltops, shouting out instructions and words of encouragement to her youngest sister as she ran by.
Raquel’s last cross-country race signals the end of an era, but it would be incomplete to leave another family out of the equation.
The St. Geme family has had six kids go through Corona del Mar. Emma St. Geme was a senior this year, and she is the last of her five sisters to go through Sumner’s program.
Starting with Annie in 2002, the St. Gemes have been a constant in the cross-country picture at CdM. Christie, Jill, and Tess also ran for the Sea Kings before Emma.
Their brother, Bo, was a wide receiver on the Sea Kings’ CIF Southern Section championship-winning football teams in 2012 and 2013.
With the Powerses and the St. Gemes soon to leave the school, some wonder how the program will rebound. Ashlee thinks that the families’ exit offers a clean slate and a chance for incoming runners to make a name for themselves.
“I’m not sure if it’s going to be a new individual legacy because I don’t know any families that have six kids,” Ashlee Powers joked. “I do know that we are now able to completely refresh and hopefully rebuild what we used to have.”
Since the St. Gemes, and successively the Powers girls, walked through the front door, Corona del Mar has made the state meet in 13 of those 15 seasons. The Sea Kings advanced to Nationals in 2005 and 2009.
BOYS CROSS COUNTRY
Foot Locker West Regionals
At Mt. San Antonio College
5K course
Seeded Race (Top 10 advance to Nationals)
1. Hull (Ogden, UT) 15:28; 2. Proctor (Seattle, WA) 15:31; 3. Ado (Spokane, WA) 15:40; 4. Grijalva (Suisun City, CA) 15:42; 5. Watkins (Bothell, WA) 15:44; 6. Bolger (San Luis Obispo, CA) 15:45; 7. Feeny (Ogden, UT) 15:46; 8. Schumacher (Portland, OR) 15:47; 9. Beaudoin-Rousseau (Sunnyvale, CA) 15:48; 10. Riding (Oren, UT) 15:53.
GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY
Foot Locker West Regionals
At Mt. San Antonio College
5K course
Seeded Race (Top 10 advance to Nationals)
1. Lane (Malibu, CA) 17:20; 2. Nelson (Greenacres, WA) 17:55; 3. Beitia (Roseville, CA) 18:02; 4. Hunter (Provo, UT) 18:03; 5. Oakes (Seattle, WA) 18:06; 6. Zlatunich (Aptos, CA) 18:09; 7. Marshall (Alameda, CA) 18:13; 8. Musselman (American Fork, UT) 18:13; 9. Bries (Peoria, AZ) 18:16; 10. Thronson (Spokane, WA) 18:19; 65. Powers (Newport Beach, CA) 19:33.
