A Star in the Distance : Channel Islands’ Barajas Emerges as Top-Flight Runner in Junior Season

Each time Veronica Barajas has asked, her mother Josefina has declined the invitation.

“I’ve tried to get her to come and watch me race, but she always wishes me good luck and tells me to go ahead without her,” the Channel Islands High junior distance runner said.

“She’s afraid to see me struggle and said she would want to come and help me.”

Her fears for her 5-foot-4, 97-pound daughter are understandable.

Barajas’ father Samuel was a jinete , a bull rider, when the couple lived in Michoacan, Mexico. He never was seriously injured and stopped his bull riding after the couple married. But his activity left a lasting impression on Josefina’s attitude toward sports.

Barajas, who will compete in the seeded mile tonight in the Sunkist Invitational indoor track meet at the L. A. Sports Arena, rose from obscurity at the beginning of the past cross-country season to finish fifth at the Kinney national championships in San Diego last month.

Barajas finished as the No. 2 underclassman behind Amanda White of Maryland, who placed third, and established herself as one of the top high school runners in the nation.

Two weeks earlier in the state meet in Fresno, Barajas finished second in the Division I race behind Agoura’s Deena Drossin, a three-time state Division I cross-country champion.

“She was always one of the most excited kids as a freshman,” said Debbie Blum, who coached Barajas as a freshman and a sophomore in cross-country and track. “She had a lot of incentive, but she was not a super runner. I thought she was going to blossom, but there’s no way I dreamed that she would do what she has done this season.”

Blum, who assists with workouts and handles administrative duties, stepped down as cross-country coach and track assistant at the end of the school year. She handed the girls’ cross-country program to Ken Martinez, an assistant with the girls’ track team and coach of the boys’ team.

Although Martinez does not see Barajas’ mother at the races, he does meet up with other family members. “Her mother supports her and gives her a lot of encouragement and her brothers and her father come to a lot of the meets,” Blum said. “Her family doesn’t push her and have been a positive influence.”

It was her brother Sal, 20, who encouraged Barajas, 16, the youngest of eight children, to go out for cross-country.

Sal and two other brothers competed on the wrestling team at Channel Islands. Valo, 18, is 33-2 in his senior season in the 112-pound weight class and plans to compete at a four-year university. He also finished fourth in the Southern Section 4-A Division in the 98-pound weight class as a sophomore and was 38-2 at 105 pounds last season.

Another brother, Frank, 24, played soccer and her sister Patty, 19, was on the softball team at Channel Islands and competed in soccer at Oxnard College this fall.

Barajas’ mother had no reservations about going to Patty’s softball games, but it has been a different story with running and wrestling.

“My mom only saw my brothers wrestle when she went to the meets on Seniors’ Night and she’s going to have to (go) again this year,” Barajas said. “She liked it when she went because they won, but she wouldn’t have liked to see them lose.”

Barajas had trouble making the top seven of the junior varsity team her freshman season before becoming the No. 3 runner at Channel Islands last season.

As a freshman, Barajas ran 29 minutes 5 seconds over the three-mile cross-country course at Moorpark College in the Royal Invitational, placing 51st in the junior varsity race.

She covered the same course this season in 17:39 and placed third in the Marmonte League finals.

“I never considered quitting after my freshman season; running was always a lot of fun,” Barajas said. “This summer, I wasn’t thinking about running in the state meet or the Kinney meet. I was just looking to be a good varsity runner.”

She showed the first signs of improvement during the past track season. Barajas placed third in the Marmonte League finals in the 800 and 1,600 meters but failed to advance beyond the Southern Section 4-A Division preliminaries.

“She continually improved last summer and was running way ahead of where she was the year before in practice,” Martinez said. “I had a clue she would be better and do well, but she came out of nowhere.”

At the first cross-country race of the season, Barajas placed second to Drossin at the Seaside Invitational in 17:28, clipping more than three minutes off her time from the previous year.

She won the Agoura and Stanford invitationals and placed no lower than third in 13 races against California competition. Her worst showing was an eighth-place finish in the Kinney Western regional--a race in which she ran while suffering from laryngitis--to qualify for the national meet.

Marmonte League rivals Jeannie Rothman of Westlake, the runner-up at the Kinney national meet, and Drossin, were the only runners to defeat Barajas during the regular high school cross-country season.

Barajas defeated Drossin in the Kinney national meet and beat Rothman, who finished second in that race, in a dual meet in September.

Barajas got her first taste of international competition last month as part of a six-runner U. S. team that finished 12th among 36 teams in the Young Women’s High School 30-kilometer Ekiden relay in Oahu, Hawaii, last month. The field included teams from the Soviet Union, Sweden and Japan.

Barajas already has attracted the attention of several NCAA Division I universities, including Cal, Stanford, Fresno State, UCLA, USC and Cal State Northridge.

“It’s kind of neat that people write to you and have heard of you,” Barajas said.

Several schools, however, were unaware that Barajas was still a junior and did not know her first name.

“She was an unknown this season,” Martinez said. “We never sat down and talked about beating people and finishing in certain spots. She ran pressure free and that’s one of the reasons she ran so well.”

Barajas also figures to make an impact during track season, although it is uncertain at which distance.

Barajas has bests of 2:25 and 5:13.00 for 800 and 1,600 meters but has never run what might be her best distance--3,200 meters.

“I went to a running camp this summer and when they asked everyone what their best was for 3,200 meters, I was the only one who didn’t have one,” Barajas said. “I never wanted to try it because I always thought it was too long, but now I’m anxious to give it a try.”

Barajas also is eager about competing indoors for the first time at the Sunkist meet.

She will face a field that includes Sarah Schwald of Spokane, Wash., Drossin, Rothman and Milena Glusac of Fallbrook, who placed third in the Kinney Western regional meet.

Schwald led the nation in the 1,500 meters (4:26.33), mile (4:50.23) and 3,000 meters (9:22.57) in 1990 and was ranked third in the nation in the mile and first in the two-mile by Track & Field News.

“I’m just going to run my own race and do as well as I can,” Barajas said. “I’ve been approaching it as a low-key race. Track hasn’t started and there is still a long way to go.

“I’m not expecting to do anything spectacular.”

Before the cross-country season, neither did anyone else.