High School Female Athlete of the Week: Marina thrower Alejandra Rosales draws strength from others
Alejandra Rosales did not have a favorite sport as she entered high school.
Rosales tried everything from basketball to football as a freshman at Los Amigos.
Rosales played both ways as a captain on the Lobos’ frosh-soph football team. She went through a number of position changes on the offensive side.
“I started off as a fullback,” Rosales said. “They saw me throw a football, I turned into a quarterback. They saw that I cannot throw under pressure, they turned me into a tight end, and I stayed at tight end.”
As an inside linebacker on defense, Rosales had a propensity to draw strange looks because she often apologized after delivering a hit. Eventually, she decided to keep her helmet on for the duration of the game so that opponents would not know that she was a girl.
For the past two years, a different story has unfolded. After transferring to Marina for her sophomore year, Rosales found her niche as a thrower in girls’ track and field.
The Vikings junior has learned to throw under pressure, and beyond that, she is definitely not shying away from the attention anymore.
Rosales began to make her mark with her first CIF Southern Section Masters Meet appearance in the discus throw last year.
She is not blessed with height. She’s blessed with a lot of speed. She’s blessed with a lot of ability to listen and to have the ability to adjust.
— Mike Giron, Marina High throws coach
The next step, in the eyes of Vikings throws coach Mike Giron, was for Rosales to commit to becoming a complete thrower. Rosales acknowledged wholeheartedly that she gave up on shotput last season when weightlifting did not immediately translate into results in the ring.
“I didn’t get better, and now I know it was because I wasn’t able to control my muscles,” Rosales said. “We spoke about it at CIF prelims, and me and Coach Giron had a deep talk that I can’t give up on shotput. I [have] got to give it 100%, and I completely agreed with him.”
Giron and Rosales have a special bond, as both are Salvadoran and have connections to the Lobos. A 1999 graduate of Los Amigos, Giron said that the communication between him and Rosales is on a level of being able to use hand signals.
Rosales recorded a pair of personal records at the Trabuco Hills Invitational on March 30. She was the runner-up to Trabuco Hills’ Kyliegh Wilkerson in the discus throw with a mark of 137 feet, four inches.
Later in the day, she came back to edge Wilkerson in the shotput with a winning toss of 38-10.
The shotput had not started out well for Rosales. She was in fifth place after her first three throws, but after advancing to finals, she completed her series with three consecutive personal records.
Giron likened the path of Rosales to that of former Viking and CIF State medalist Kyle Tsu, who favored the shotput over the discus throw throughout his high school career.
Tsu, who is now at UC Irvine, was a perfect of example of what could happen when an athlete trusts the process, and the parallels have been uncanny with Rosales submitting herself to the ideas of the coaching staff.
Rosales, who is 5-foot-5 and 200 pounds, now ranks fifth in the section in the discus throw and eighth in the shotput. She will be competing in the open flight of both events at the Arcadia Invitational on Saturday.
“She blends in,” Giron said. “She is not blessed with height. She’s blessed with a lot of speed. She’s blessed with a lot of ability to listen and to have the ability to adjust. She’s so coachable. That makes up for her being so small.
“She really committed herself to working, and that’s something that I really respect about her. She embraced the work.”
At the outset of her time with the Vikings, Rosales felt that there weren’t many people that believed in her, at least outside of the program.
As much as her marks put her in a position to take her teammates under her wing, Rosales says that it has been quite the opposite with senior Caitlyn Rayburn, another Marina thrower who has come on strong herself.
“It’s more like, in a weird way, she’s taking me under her wing,” Rosales said of Rayburn. “She’s been throwing all four years. So have I [for three years], but last year was where I honestly took it seriously. Cait was just like, ‘You have to give it 100%.’ She’s a motivator to me. She’s one of the best people that I have ever met [and] will ever meet. She motivates me to be the best that I am.
“I try to motivate her just as much as she motivates me. She is my best friend.”
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Alejandra Rosales
Born: Feb. 28, 2002
Hometown: Huntington Beach
Height: 5 feet 5
Weight: 200 pounds
Sport: Track and field
Year: Junior
Coaches: Carlos Castellanos and Mike Giron
Favorite food: Pupusas
Favorite movie: “The Help”
Favorite athletic moment: Rosales unleashed her best throw of her sophomore season to set the girls’ discus throw frosh-soph record for the Orange County Championships at 131-8.
Week in review: Rosales produced lifetime-best marks in both of her events at the Trabuco Hills Invitational on March 30. She won the shotput (38-10) and was the runner-up in the discus throw (137-4).
Twitter: @ProfessorTurner
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