Sage Creek senior standout is 11th female athlete from San Diego Section to qualify for championship meet, looks to become fifth individual to earn All-America honors after team just misses NXN berth

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

On a drizzly and dreary afternoon nearly two weeks ago, the girls from Sage Creek’s cross country team took their mightiest swing at earning a Nike Cross Nationals team berth.

Though they won the California Division 4 state championship and destroyed the previous record for team time in the division, they fell short of an NXN berth. By most accounts, they barely missed and were likely one of the last two schools left out of the 22-team field that competed Saturday in Portland.

For senior ace Skyler Wallace, that meant a shift of gears to a second mini-journey, one she finishes Saturday as the lone San Diego area runner in the 41st Foot Locker Cross Country Championships at, of course, Balboa Park’s Morley Field in San Diego.

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“I knew for sure, no matter what, that I would be racing another week, at NXN or Foot Locker,” Wallace said. “I felt like I was mentally prepared for anything. It was kind of tough to be around my teammates when we found out we didn’t make it.

“At the same time, we had just broke the Division 4 record by three minutes, so it was hard to be too upset.”

So she turned her attention to another long-awaited goal of running in the Foot Locker Nationals. Along with younger sister, sophomore Stormy Wallace, she set out Saturday to Mt. San Antonio College at the Foot Locker West Regionals.

Skyler was also fueled, her father Vince Wallace said, by individual perspective from the state meet, even though she was the Division 4 runner-up at Woodward Park, finishing 15 seconds behind winner Brooke Secreto of Foothill Tech.

In other words, she wanted to win.

“Going into Foot Locker, she had a lot of built-up redemption on her mind,” Vince Wallace said. “She wanted to prove herself.”

Skyler challenged for the win before settling for second place in 17 minutes, 6.3 seconds on the 5-kilometer rain-altered road course at Mt. SAC.

“It was an awesome race,” Skyler Wallace said. “We were thrown a curveball with them changing the course. I felt really great on Saturday, and no matter what course it was run on, I was prepared to do anything to place in the top 10.”

Much like La Costa Canyon’s Kristin Fahy last year – who finished 25th – Wallace, a Northern Arizona commit, became the great San Diego area hope by qualifying.

Interestingly, though, she’s never attended the race. She was 16th at the West Regional last year – the same placing for Stormy this year – and the top 10 advance.

But like an NHL player’s approach with the Stanley Cup, when they won’t touch it unless they’ve earned it, she wasn’t attending unless she was competing.

“I couldn’t get myself to go out and actually watch the race,” she said of last year.

There’s even some history that could be made. Wallace becomes the 11th female athlete ever from San Diego compete this weekend.

She could also become the fifth to become an All-American, following Rancho Bernardo’s Molly Grabill in 2009 and 2010, San Pasqual’s Clare Rethmeier in 2003, Fallbrook’s Milena Glusac in 1990, 1991 and 1992, and Rancho Buena Vista’s Kira Jorgensen four times from 1985 through 1988.

Jorgensen was the only San Diego winner of the event, in 1987. Glusac was the runner-up in 1992.

Wallace might be as prepared as anyone entering such a moment.

Since they were small, Vince Wallace said, Skyler and Stormy have been around sports, whether it be gymnastics, soccer or running.

“We’ve just kind of always been a sports family,” Vince Wallace said. “We just always had them in stuff.”

Youth soccer, and the familiarity with grueling travel schedules help. So, too, did the fact that the girls’ mother, then known as Michelle Cox at Escondido High, won a Division 2 state championship at Woodward Park in 1992 before going on to run at both USC and San Diego State.

“It’s super awesome having two parents that really know what they’re talking about in the sports of running,” Skyler said. “Just talking with them, it helps to boost my confidence, too.”

It’s a confidence that appears to be riding high at the right time on a day in which she can run in front of her home crowd.

“From what we’ve heard,” Vince Wallace said, “there’s going to be a ton of people there.”

“Yeah, it’s amazing,” Skyler said. “But on Saturday, but I’m still going there to race. So hopefully, this long-term goal can be something even bigger than I thought it could be with a strong performance on Saturday.”