Girls’ Track & Field: No one messes with Newport’s A La Torre

Rachelle A La Torre always seems to be performing at her best for Newport Harbor High with something in her hand. You will find the junior either with a stick, a disc or a ball, sometimes with all three in one day.

A La Torre is a percussionist. During sporting events and concerts, she strikes an array of instruments, from a triangle, to a drum, to a bell, to a cymbal, on a rack. When she’s not playing with the school’s band, A La Torre is competing in track and field.

A La Torre is a thrower for the Sailors, one of the few girls who participate in the discus throw and shotput at the school. A La Torre and two others, Tommesha Holt and Katherine Ayala, make up the girls’ throwers. The trio shows up and works out with the other 12 boys who throw for Coach Tony Ciarelli. He treats the girls and boys the same way.

“Everybody is expected to do the work,” Ciarelli said. “We’ve had a few [girls] come and stay until 5, 6, 7 o’clock at night to do all the lifting. [A La Torre is] obviously a special athlete. Her strength levels are very high comparatively to even strong girls.

“I coached the Heads sisters, [Cara and Gina at Newport Harbor during the 1990s], which Cara was a 2000 Olympian [weightlifter], and [A La Torre’s] overall strength levels are about the same as Cara’s were when she was a junior in high school.”

A La Torre is now trying to catch the Heads sisters in terms of distance. She has a ways to go before breaking Cara’s discus mark of 149 feet, 5 inches and Gina’s shotput mark of 47-5.

Ciarelli believes A La Torre has what it takes to one day own both Newport Harbor throwing records. Right now, he’s more worried about A La Torre finding her rhythm in the shotput before the postseason begins. She’s doing pretty well in the discus.

A La Torre let it fly Saturday at the Orange County Championships, heaving a personal-best 139-footer to win the discus at Mission Viejo High. In the shotput, she placed second with a 38-2 1/2 performance.

Out of all of Newport Harbor’s upperclassmen throwers, including the boys, only A La Torre medaled. There used to be a time when the boys gave A La Torre a hard time.

“My freshman year … was one of the hardest things ever,” A La Torre said. “I didn’t know any of the guys. They all really teased me. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’re not going to like it. You’re going to quit within like the next two or three weeks.’ Some of them actually started a wager. They’re like, ‘She’s not going to [last the] season.’

“After freshman year, I guess I kind of like proved myself to them, so they started easing up. I gained their respect, so to speak.”

No one really messes with A La Torre now. She’s only 5-foot-4, but A La Torre is the strongest girl at Newport Harbor. She can squat 308 pounds, clean 187 pounds, jerk 165 pounds, bench 143 pounds and snatch 132 pounds.

All the strength, combined with her technique, devotion and superior coaching has resulted in A La Torre recording the third-best throw in the discus this year in the CIF Southern Section. The two girls ahead of her are seniors, Newbury Park’s Kendall Mader (164-4) and Thousand Oaks’ Alexa Coubal (145-3).

A La Torre plans to compete against Mader and Coubal this month. She counts on seeing Coubal at the CIF Southern Section Division 2 preliminaries on May 16 at Moorpark High, and then at the CIF Southern Section Divisional finals on May 23 at Cerritos College, where Mader is expected to throw in Division 1. Cerritos College is also the site of the May 29 Masters meet, the precursor to the CIF State championships.

The goal for A La Torre is to reach state for the first time at Buchanan High in Clovis on June 5-6. Last year, she missed Masters, finishing 15th with a mark of 121-1 in the discus.

Ciarelli said A La Torre’s best chance to make it to state is in the discus. The last two Newport Harbor girls who threw for Ciarelli to qualify for state are the Heads sisters, Gina finished third in both the discus and shotput as a senior in 1994 and Cara took fifth in the discus as a senior in 1995.

A La Torre isn’t a senior yet, but don’t count her out. She first took up throwing at Ensign Intermediate School as a seventh-grader. After she found out she wasn’t much of a runner, she saw a bunch of boys throwing a metal ball around.

“I asked the coach, ‘What’s that?’ and [the boys were] like, ‘Oh, that’s a guy sport,’” A La Torre said. “I was like, ‘Oh, really, so why is there a girl coach?’ They’re like, ‘Well, I guess it’s not a guy sport, but I mean you can give it a shot, but you probably won’t like it.’

“I mainly joined to prove a point, and afterward, I just loved it. It was something … I just felt I was good at. It came with its cons, obviously. My shoulders starting getting bigger, I started getting stronger, and the guys would tease me every now and then, but then I was like, ‘Hey! I’m stronger than you, so watch out!’”

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Rachelle A La Torre

Born: Jan. 15, 1998

Hometown: Costa Mesa

Height: 5-foot-4

Year: Junior

Coach: Tony Ciarelli

Favorite food: Pizza

Favorite movie: “Forrest Gump”

Favorite athletic moment: “Whenever I manage to hit a PR.”

Week in review: A La Torre won the discus throw with a personal-best heave of 139 feet and placed second in the shotput with a throw of 38-2 1/2 at the Orange County Championships at Mission Viejo High.