Rochester cross-country notes: Calloway makes last run for state finals
- Val T.
- 9 hours ago
- 7 min read
Also… Miller, Ochoa, Hayes, Javier prep for regional
BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS
Sports Editor, RTC
NORTH MANCHESTER — For many girls cross-country runners, earning a trip to the regional by running 5K in 21:41 at the Manchester sectional would be a reason to celebrate.
For Rochester senior Allyson Calloway, it was exasperating.
She expects more from herself. She has a track record – literally – of doing better. She ran a full minute faster at the Three Rivers Conference meet on the same course two weeks earlier.
“Honestly, very disappointed,” Calloway said. “My last year here, I ran a 20:26, and this year, I honestly have no idea what happened. I just had a pain in my chest, and we got out really hard, and I don’t know. I just got really nervous during the race. … It just makes me nervous for next week just to see what I can do.”
She will run again at the New Haven regional at Huntington University Saturday. The boys race starts at 10:30 a.m., and the girls race will start at approximately 11:15 a.m. Admission is $10.
Here is not only a chance to make state but to figure out what happened at sectional and correct it. She ran a 20:27 at last year’s regional at Huntington and finished in 49th place out of 241 runners.
“Next week, honestly, I’m just going to try to get a good week of sleep, rest, eating well,” Calloway said. “I think it’s really going to hit me that this could potentially be my last race of high school. And I think that’s going to drive me to do good. I think my anxiety took over today. I really need to get that under control for next week.”
Pryor understood Calloway’s disappointment but said there might have also been some health issues.
“I think we’re both disappointed with how it went, but at the same time, she’s been battling some sinus infections and some illnesses the last couple of weeks, and the race got out really hard, and I think that just set her back from an oxygen debt perspective,” Pryor said. “It’s never easy to recover when you’re struggling to breathe. She did what she had to do. We move on to next week, and we have a chance at state.”
Calloway will be running in her fourth regional for her third different coach – Scott Stalbaum, Alex Gudeman and now Pryor. She said Pryor has varied the workouts and focused more on speed workouts in recent weeks.
Her three teammates that will be joining her – freshman Daniela Ochoa, junior Vivian Miller and sophomore Adison Hayes – will all be running in her first.
“Just go out and have fun and do your best,” Calloway said when asked what advice she would give the other three. “It’s going to be a lot cooler next weekend – like 60 degrees, I think, which is going to help a lot because I know we were all struggling with the heat today. So just go out there and have fun and see what happens.”
From soils to striding: Miller stars in cross-country debut
Before he became her cross-country coach, Pryor was one of Miller’s track coaches.
And before he was one of her track coaches, he was Miller’s Sunday school teacher.
And in Sunday school, Pryor challenged Miller to a wager that tied in cross-country with Miller’s prowess in soils judging.
“I lost a bet to the head coach, Troy Pryor,” Miller explained when asked how she started in cross-country.
Miller is on the Rochester soils judging team. The hope was that the soils judging team would go to nationals for the first time in five years.
“We were really hoping we would make it, but I didn’t believe we would at first because we have so many competitors in our area,” Miller said. “And so I was like I don’t know if it’s going to be possible. I was kind of anxious about it.
“So Troy goes, ‘I’ll tell you what. You already did track. … If you go to nationals for soils, you have to do cross-country. And I told him OK because I was tired of hearing about it. So I said OK. And then we made it to nationals.”
As soon as Rochester made it to nationals, Miller texted Pryor with the news.
“I guess I’m doing cross-country,” Miller texted.
Pryor said Miller only started running track last spring once she realized she was running cross-country. Now she needed to prepare.
“Well, the recruiting story is kind of funny,” Pryor said. “That actually got her into track because she wanted to get ready for cross-country, so the fact that she made that commitment after qualifying for nationals in soils got her into track, and now she’s in love with the 400, and she seems to be falling in love with cross-country. It’s just kind of funny that it all happened on a bat over soils.”
Rochester finished second at the Three Rivers Conference girls meet this year. Last year, they did not even have enough runners for a complete team.
The emergence of Miller has had much to do with it.
Miller has missed two meets this year to FFA soils judging competitions, but she made honorable mention all-TRC.
“It’s a blessing,” Miller said. “I’m really, really happy that I’m able to do this. I feel very blessed to be able to do this and soils at the same time. I’m just grateful for my coach and everything.”
Miller is five years older than her sister Vanessa, but it was Vanessa who got started in cross-country first last year as a fifth-grader.
“I was like, we’ve got another one,” Pryor recalled when Miller told him she was joining cross-country.
Vivian said she identifies with the middle school runners because they are new to the sport like she is. She speaks of “big sister energy” underneath the crowded black Roichester tent at meets.
It was Vanessa who advised Vivian about not only the physical but also the mental and emotional demands of the sport.
“She told me to prepare to cry,” Vivian said. “And I haven’t cried yet. I’m very proud of myself. But my sister and I are very competitive. She always likes to come up to me like, ‘What was your time?’ And I’m like it doesn’t even matter because I run a 5K and you run a 3K. And she goes, ‘Oh right, my bad.’ That’s the fun part.”
Consistent Ochoa makes regional as freshman
Daniela Ochoa has achieved a consistency as a freshman that many older runners might never achieve. Consistently between 22:00 and 22:15, she slipped slightly to 22:47 at the sectional on a day in which most runners were slower due to humid weather and a fierce pace.
“I would say she’s in a really good rut right now,” Pryor said. “Obviously, I would think she would want to get down in the low 21s if she could. She’s been around 21:30 this year at Oak Hill. So she knows she’s got it in her legs. She can do that, but with the conditions, I thought that’s a really good time. I told her after the race she did everything we needed to put ourselves in a good position as a team, and that’s awesome as a freshman to come through for your teammates. And it’s awesome as a freshman to come through for your teammates, and she’s a really solid number two and had a good run.”
Hayes gets off, bubble, advances to regional
Adison Hayes was dealing with pain in her calf earlier this season that left her season in some doubt. But she was back running a 23:26 at the conference meet, just missing the all-TRC team. In the rough, muggy winds of the sectional, she ran a 23:36 and qualified for regionals.
“I was incredibly pumped,” Pryor said when asked about Hayes making the regional. “She was one that I really wanted to get out. She was on the bubble last year and barely missed, and so I really wanted her to get out this year. I think it’s awesome for her as a sophomore to get that experience at regionals, and I think it sets herself up for a really good last two years in our cross-country program and gives her some big confidence going into track.”
Javier ‘right where he needed to be, heading into 2nd regional
Leandro Javier is the lone Rochester runner to advance to the boys regional after finishing 21st overall and seventh among individuals on non-advancing teams with an 18:18 at the sectional.
The junior that they call “Arlo” qualified for last year’s regional as an individual and ran a 19:24. He cut that time down to 18:38 on the same course at the New Haven Invitational Sept. 27.
“I think Arlo had a decent race for the conditions that are out there,” Pryor said after the sectional. “The wind is really rough, especially back by the soccer fields where they’re kind of in isolation in that first mile, and so with the conditions, his time is right where he should be and his place is right where he should be. We talk about top 20 being the extended goal, and he was right around that position, right where he needed to be.
“I think he’s set himself to have a really good regional race. He’s fit, and he’s ready to go.”
