Santibanez Benefits From Goals

Katella’s Jill Santibanez had doubts about her potential at the start of her high school career, but as a senior she established herself as one of the best girls’ cross-country athletes in the county and is this year’s Times Orange County runner of the year.

“I never thought I’d be a strong competitor,” Santibanez said. “I didn’t start having any real goals until last year. I never thought I’d have the potential to do as well as I have done.”

Santibanez was the county’s only runner to win a Southern Section title, which she clinched with a time of 18 minutes 33 seconds on the three-mile course at Mt. San Antonio College.

“My biggest accomplishments were winning CIF and reaching most of my goals and the times that I wanted to run,” Santibanez said.

From the start of the season, Santibanez showed flashes of her potential, winning the Division II race at the Cal Poly Pomona Bronco Invitational in 18:52. She took second place in the Division II race at the Stanford Invitational (18:56).

She capped her domination of Empire League opponents by winning her second consecutive league title. Santibanez also finished undefeated in dual meets for the second year in a row. She won the league final race in 19:03 at Irvine Regional Park.

The only down side to Santibanez’s season was her 10th-place finish in the state Division II finals race, in which she completed the 3.1-mile course at Fresno’s Woodward Park in 18:57.

“I was really disappointed to finish 10th at state because I finished 10th last year and I had beaten the girls ahead of me before,” Santibanez said. “I was prepared for the race and I should have done better. If I could go back, I’d get more sleep.”

But she didn’t let that race hinder her perspective.

“I feel that I had a pretty good season this year,” Santibanez said. “I didn’t have a low point in my season. I kept on improving my times and I just kept getting better.”

In fact, Santibanez rebounded from her disappointing performance at the state meet by turning in a 20th-place finish in the West Regional championships with a time of 18:40 at Woodward Park. However, she did not qualify for the National championships, which, she said, “was my goal at the beginning of the season. But it just didn’t happen.”

“I felt good about myself [after regionals] because I beat everyone from state and I was the first runner to finish from Orange County,” she said.

And though it would have been hard to improve on her season, Santibanez acknowledges that she could have done more.

“I would have trained a lot harder,” she said. “I thought it was adequate for the goals I wanted to accomplish. But I learned from that, so I’ll train a lot harder for track because I want to run against the toughest competitors and win.”