Junior Dynasty Gammage has made a habit of making history in her career at Poly, and she did it again at the CIF Finals on Saturday, becoming the first Jackrabbit girls’ runner to qualify for State.  Gammage will compete in the CIF State Finals at Woodward Park in Fresno next Saturday thanks to her 18:19 time and spectacular finish.

What’s most incredible truly wasn’t that Gammage excelled enough to qualify—it was the way she did it.  Needing to finish in the top twenty overall, and as one of the five fastest runners not on a qualifying team, she had some ground to make up with 800 meters left, where she sat in 25th.  With 400 meters to go she was in 19th—in the top twenty, but still not among the top five runners not on a qualifying team.  According to her coaches, that was a position she didn’t reach until the last five strides of the race.

But the coaches weren’t cheering when she crossed the line.  “We were just trying to count runners,” says Poly girls’ coach Nate Bershtel.  Gammage finished with two runners from Riverside King in front of her, which meant that their team needed to qualify for State as a unit for Gammage to make it—which, it turned out, they did.

The race next week should prove interesting—she’ll be racing against the best runners in the state, but Bershtel says when Gammage and the rest of her team ran at Woodward earlier this year, it was Gammage’s “breakthrough race of the year.”

As a team, Poly’s girls finished 13th, while the boys’ team placed 12th.

Stay tuned for more on Gammage’s preparations for State later this week!