Daily Pilot High School Athlete of the Week: Powers a rock for Sea Kings
Midway through last season, Raquel Powers started writing on the soles of her running shoes in permanent marker.
The single word she writes, “state,” has a lot of meaning to her as a member of the Corona del Mar High girls’ cross country team.
Last year, as a sophomore, Powers helped the Sea Kings return to the CIF State Meet in Clovis after a two-year absence. Now, as a junior, she wants to go back.
Since it’s on the bottom of her shoes, she can’t see the word “state” while she’s running.
“But I know that it’s there,” Powers said. “It’s kind of like state. It’s far off, it’s out of sight, but it’s not out of mind. It’s kind of like every step I take, takes me closer to state.”
Powers and the CdM girls, who finished ninth in the state in Division 3 last season, are working hard to ensure a repeat visit. They have gotten off to a quick start.
CdM won its race at the Woodbridge Invitational on Sept. 18. Then, last weekend, the Sea Kings captured the Sunny Hills Invitational at Craig Park in Fullerton.
CdM Coach Bill Sumner likes to call Powers by the nickname of “Rock,” though sometimes he slips up and calls her Raquel Welch by accident. Powers, the Daily Pilot Athlete of the Week, has certainly been a rock this year for CdM, finishing second in all three of her races so far.
She was second in the Division 3 junior girls’ race at the Laguna Hills Invitational in 18 minutes and 31 seconds, as well as at Woodbridge (17:57) and at Sunny Hills (17:56).
Powers burst onto the scene two years ago, winning the freshman girls’ Division 3 race at Laguna Hills and forcing Sumner to put her on varsity. Ever since then, she’s been durable, never missing a race.
“This should be her biggest year so far,” Sumner said. “She’s rolling, and we’re just now starting to do speed work.”
It was a tough summer for Powers and the Sea Kings. On weekday mornings they would go to Inspiration Point at 6:30 a.m., and run eight to 10 miles. Sometimes they also would run laps on the grass at Lincoln Elementary. Then, there was the altitude and hill training at Mammoth in mid-August.
“Woo, that really worked me out,” Powers said. “By the end of it, all of us were so sore. We had all of these aches and pains ... [but] I think it just made us all strong. [Sumner] really had us working hard this summer. So far, it’s paying off.”
The Sea Kings have a strong group of senior tri-captains in Jacqueline Choe, Lilly Schmidt and Hannah Crane. But Sumner said that Powers, who is young for her grade at not quite 16, does a good job of dealing with the underclassmen, including talented freshman Gigi Lee.
Powers helped CdM win at the Sunny Hills Invitational despite a miscue. Sumner said that two of the seniors, Choe and Schmidt, accidentally ran about 200 yards the wrong way on the course during the senior girls’ race. They were among the top three runners in the race at that time. Crane eventually won the race, in 19:14.
Seemingly nothing can slow down CdM, which is ranked No. 4 in CIF Southern Section Division 3 and is gearing up for the Clovis Invitational on Oct. 10, at the state meet course. First, the Sea Kings have their first Pacific Coast League meet, at Mason Park in Irvine on Wednesday.
“So far it’s going great,” Powers said. “It’s looking very optimistic. I think we can make it to state again this year.”
Raquel Powers wants to live up to the work of her older sisters, Melanie and Ashlee, who were a senior and sophomore, respectively, on the 2009 CdM team that won the CIF State Division III title. Melanie ran for three years at Wake Forest, while Ashlee is a senior runner at UCLA. Both of Raquel’s older sisters were there to watch her race at Sunny Hills.
“Ashlee is probably my biggest role model,” Raquel Powers said. “She’s kind of a mix of my mom and my coach. She really disciplines me and coaches me, tells me what to eat and what not to eat. She reminds me to get as much sleep as I can, eat my vegetables and my greens. She keeps telling me to drink Pedialyte, hydrate. So she’s very hard on me, but it’s good, I need that. It keeps me on track.
“They kind of play like a good cop, bad cop. Melanie’s like the good cop and Ashlee’s like the bad cop.”
The system seems to be working for the Powers family, just as Raquel is working hard for the Sea Kings. At the first league meet on Wednesday, she is likely to see her rivals, Sami Murphy of Northwood and Elizabeth Dahl of Woodbridge.
All three runners are juniors. Murphy took third place at the Woodbridge Invitational, as Powers was seven seconds faster.
“She has beaten Murphy a couple of times,” Sumner said. “She beat her at Woodbridge, she beat her a couple of times last year. But Murphy was the big gun last year in track. The two of them have been neck and neck for the last three years ... Murphy’s the biggest thorn in her side right now. You know, there’s always one.”
Sumner likes the chances of CdM’s rock to come through.
Twitter: @mjszabo
Raquel
Powers
Born: Oct. 11, 1999
Hometown: Newport Beach
Height: 5-foot-5
Sport: Cross country
Year: Junior
Coach: Bill Sumner
Favorite food: Sushi
Favorite movie: “Unbroken”
Favorite athletic moment: Winning both the frosh-soph 1,600 meters and 3,200 meters last year in track at the Orange County Championships.
Week in review: Powers finished second in the junior girls’ race at the Sunny Hills Invitational on Sept. 26, helping CdM capture the team title.
