Tesoro's Amanda Gehrich motivated to get school record and possibly more at 41st Dana Hills Nike Invitational

By Erik Boal, DyeStatCAL Editor

A week after encountering an unexpected obstacle during her race at the Mt. Carmel Invitational, Amanda Gehrich doesn’t want anything to stand in her way Saturday in her pursuit of a school record at the 41^st Dana Hills Nike Invitational in Dana Point.

Gehrich, a Tesoro junior, enters the girls invitational race at 8:15 a.m. looking to produce the best 3-mile girls time in program history.

Gehrich (pictured right) clocked a Division I freshman record 16 minutes, 58.8 seconds when she posted the fastest time of the meet regardless of grade at the 2012 event, but didn’t compete at Dana Hills last season, making the trip north to the Stanford Invitational instead.

Following her Division I junior victory Sept. 20 at Mt. Carmel -- being forced to stop during the race because she had to navigate around a barrier that been incorrectly placed on the course layout – during a 2.75-mile race in her season debut, Gehrich is ready for her first 3-mile challenge.

“I’m really excited to run at Dana and break my record there,” Gehrich said. “I have so much more experience since the last time I ran there. Having gone to state twice, I have more knowledge now and I have a better idea of what I’m doing and I feel a lot stronger.”

Former Tesoro standout Emily Scharmann, now at UCLA, twice ran 16:57 during 3-mile races, the first time to win the Woodbridge Classic rated race in 2011 and the other at the 2012 South Coast League final at Irvine Regional Park.

Gehrich is not only motivated to eclipse Scharmann’s standards, but move closer to the overall meet record of 16:33 set in 2008 by former San Clemente star Alex Dunne.

“I’ve gone over the race in my head so many times. I’m so close to it. I’m a second off (Emily), so I want to get over that and then get closer to breaking the record,” Gehrich said. “It’s a good course and all the conditions are right, so I’m ready to do it.”

Tesoro is scheduled to compete Oct. 11 at the Clovis Invitational at Woodward Park – also site of the state meet Nov. 29 – but Gehrich won’t be able to attend because of SAT testing. As a result, Gehrich will only have a Sea View League meet between Dana Hills and the Orange County Championships on Oct. 18, placing even more emphasis on her running well to continue to build confidence in preparation for the Mt. SAC Invitational on Oct. 25.

“It puts a lot more importance on this race,” Gehrich said. “This meet is pretty big, so I really want to do well. I really want a chance to push myself, especially after what happened last week. I’ve been working really hard in practice, so I want to see how that carries over into the race.”

Despite the frustrating circumstances of her Mt. Carmel race, Gehrich still clocked the fastest time of the day at 15:37, giving indication that her summer workouts are paying dividends.

“She established some really solid base training. She went to Big Bear and did two-a-days, so she’s really benefited from that,” Tesoro girls coach Pattie Fasola said. “I think she’s paced herself really well, but she’s improving all the time, which is really exciting to see where she’s going to be at the end of the season.”

There will also be an invitational boys race to start the meet at 8 a.m.

The final Division I freshman race is at 9:45 a.m., with Division II competition scheduled to start at 10 a.m.

Division II freshman competition wraps up at 11:45 a.m., with Division III races starting around noon. The meet should conclude at approximately 1:45 p.m.