[Vision2020] Los Angeles Times: "Sarah Baxter doesn't know how to lose... unbeaten, unreal, wonderfully unaware."

[Ted Moffett]

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/06/sports/la-sp-plaschke-20121207
BILL PLASCHKE Sarah Baxter doesn't know how to lose
The unbeaten junior from Simi Valley High is a three-time state
cross-country champion who sometimes hangs back with her teammates during a
race, just to enjoy their company.
December 06, 2012 <http://articles.latimes.com/2012/dec/06>|Bill Plaschke

She is unbeaten, unreal, and wonderfully unaware.

"I guess I run because I'm not good at anything else," Sarah Baxter says
with a tiny grin.

She hasn't lost a cross-country race in the three years of her Simi Valley
High career, yet she once got lost while leading a race on her home course.

"She was supposed to go left, she went right, and everyone was screaming
and jumping to get her attention," recalls Jessie Ellis, a Pioneers
assistant girls' cross-country coach. "A funny story, but there are a lot
of funny stories about Sarah."

She is a three-time state champion and a two-time high school national
champion after last weekend's victory in the Nike Cross Nationals in
Portland, Ore. Yet her teammates say her most memorable move occurs before
every race, when, at the starting line, she breaks into a dance they call
"The Baxter Boogie."

Says Baxter: "Oh, c'mon, I'm just shaking it out."

Says teammate Olivia Rosellini with a giggle: "She's pretty quirky."

This fall she ran the fastest 5K girls' time in the 64-year history of the
course at the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational in what one expert
called "the greatest high school performance ever." She later set the state
meet course record in Fresno. But her teammates says she's more amazing
when she hangs back with them, because, in the middle of a long run, while
everyone else is breathless, she'll start crooning loud renditions of
Journey or Elton John tunes.

Says Rosellini: "Out of nowhere, she starts singing, 'Don't stop
believin'…' and we're like, what?"

Says Baxter: "That's why I like to run with them. When I run by myself, I'm
left to my own thoughts, and that's not always pretty."

She doesn't have much choice on that "run by myself" part. As arguably the
best girls' cross-country runner in the country, the 16-year-old junior
often competes by herself, running far in front of the pack with a 30-0
record that has rarely even been challenged.

She is so good, beaten opponents ask for her autograph. She is so fast, she
can finish a race, towel off, and return to the course to cheer on her
teammates.

"We'll all be kicking toward the finish and she'll be standing there all
rested and waiting for us," says teammate Sarah Riggs. "It's just
unnatural."

What is unnatural is how this 5-foot-6, 100-pound girl with long blond hair
and a shy smile handles the pressure. She has never lost, so she's never
allowed to lose. Other teams and athletes can have bad games, bad months,
even bad seasons if they can figure it out during the playoffs — hello,
Lakers — but Baxter can't even have a bad 15 minutes.

"It's kind of scary," she says. "I try not to think about it."

Every time she steps onto one of those winding dirt paths, everyone is
staring at her. Every time she begins running, everyone — from 14 girls to
200 girls — is chasing her. The expectations are so immense that sometimes,
at the starting line, her eyes fill with tears. She says a prayer for
strength before every race, and often emits a sigh of relief afterward.

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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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