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Windsor's Tracy dazzles at Empire Track and Field Championships

ERIC BRANCH
Press Democrat Staff Writer

Published: Saturday, May 23, 2009

The high-flying Tracy, a brilliant student who took up track to add another line to his college applications, added
another title to his resume Saturday by leaping 6 feet, 6 inches at the Redwood Empire Track and Field Championships
at Santa Rosa High.

Four years ago, Tracy, who has a 4.28 GPA, didn’t anticipate this. He just wanted to be as well-rounded as possible
and hope schools like Stanford and Princeton took notice.

“I really thought (track) would be an extracurricular and it’s something I’d put on my college application,” Tracy
said. “You know, ‘I do a sport. I’m out being active.’”

Tracy is a little more than active. Try awesome.

His personal-best leap of 6-9 ranks first in Northern California, seventh in the state and 18th in the nation this
season. He ranks seventh in Empire history and will continue jumping at Cal next fall.

Cal pursued the 6-foot-6 Tracy for his track prowess, but it’s likely he would have made the cut if he never cleared
a high bar.

Tracy has a 4.6 GPA as a senior, is a lifetime member of the California Scholarship Federation, has interned at a
software company in Denver, served as a volunteer at Bouverie Nature Preserve the past nine years and has been involved
with an organization that quilts clothes and blankets for the homeless.

And, oh right, he’s a third-degree black belt in taekwondo who can nearly high jump building in a single bound.

“To be able to go to a Division I school and continue jumping,” Tracy said. “That’s something I’d never really even
thought about.”

Tracy wasn’t the only Empire athlete to dominate at the meet, which sent the top seven finishers in each event to next
week’s Meet of Champions at Cal. The top four finishers at the MOC will advance to the ultra-competitive state finals
in Clovis from June 5-6.

Ursuline junior Michelle Stone turned heads in the pole vault with a winning mark of 11 feet, 2 inches, one inch better
than her previous best and the fifth-best vault in Empire history.

Stone has proven to be a quick study in the hard-to-master event. But before she could begin making her mark in the
pole vault, she had to learn the painful way why she should make it her focus.

As a freshman, Stone, still searching for her niche, was experimenting with other events. And one experiment went
particularly poorly.

“I did the long jump just to try it one time and I did something stupid and sprained my ankle,” Stone said. “I’m a huge
klutz. Fortunately that was freshman year, so I was able to start over.”

After her injury wiped out most of freshman year, Stone managed to vault 9-6 as a sophomore. She credits Ursuline coach
Rich Kingsborough and private coach Bruce Hotaling, whom she began working with this past summer, for her 20-inch
improvement since last year.

Another Empire athlete on a fast track is Montgomery sophomore Alyssa Page, who lowered her Empire-leading times en
route to a win in the 100 meters and a runner-up finish in the 200.

Page lowered her school record in the 100 with a time of 12.35 seconds and ran the 200 in 25.75 seconds, the second-
fastest mark in school history.

The 5-9 Page, who won’t turn 16 until June, began running track at Herbert Slater Middle School. But she was first
flashing her speed not long after she mastered walking.

“My mom says that whenever we walked as family, I always had to be in front,” Page said. “I always had to run somewhere.”

Page, who also ran the anchor leg to lead Montgomery to a second-place finish in the 4x100 relay, is advancing to the
MOC for the second straight year. And this year the state meet might even be a possibility.

“I’ve surprised myself a little,” Page said. “After I made it to (the MOC) last year I thought ‘Yeah, I can keeping
doing this and see where it goes.’”

Petaluma senior Devin Lockert won the 800 meters in perhaps the most exciting race of the day.

In the final 100 meters, Lockert was briefly overtaken by Fortuna’s T.J. Rice. But Lockert summoned another gear to win
in 1:57.06, .26 seconds ahead of Rice.

“We were all talking about our times before the race and he was pretty quiet,” Lockert said of Rice. “He didn’t say
anything so I kind of had my eye on him.”

Lockert’s teammate, senior Kaleb Trembley, won the triple jump (44-11) and the long jump (21-5½) and Santa Rosa senior
Troy Baker won the discus (157-1) and the shot put. Baker, who entered as the North Coast Section’s leader in the shot
put, won with a personal-best toss of 53-10.

Casa Grande junior Jacque Taylor, who finished second in the state in the 1,600 meters last year, won the 1,600
(4:54.93) and 3,200 (10:43.94).

Notes: Petaluma won the boys’ and girls’ team titles. The girls’ team edged runner-up Redwood, 56-54. The boys’ team
beat second-place Santa Rosa, 109-58 ... Petaluma senior Sterling Lockert ran the seventh-fastest time in Empire history
in the 3,200 meters en route to a second-place finish. Lockert lowered his personal-best time by more than seven
seconds while chasing Novato junior Erik Olson, who won in 8:57.24. Olson’s personal-best time of 8:55.19 ranks second
in the nation this season ... Healdsburg’s Claire Bingham, the Sonoma County League champion in the 100 hurdles, the
300 hurdles and the 100 meters, couldn’t compete due to an ankle sprain she suffered in P.E. class earlier this week.

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