By Michael Holcombe, Sports Writer
A year ago, South Brunswick’s Sophia Ginez made an auspicious debut on the high school cross country scene.
As only a freshman she finished second at the Greater Middlesex Conference Meet and went all the way to the state group meet. For many runners that is an entire career, but for the competitive and talented Ginez, it was merely a starting point.
South Brunswick’s top runner entered her sophomore season with concrete goals for improvement, including a GMC Meet championship and a berth in the NJSIAA Meet of Champions at season’s end.
Two Saturdays ago, on a muddy and treacherous course, Ginez got halfway there when she won the GMC title . This past week, she took a giant step towards accomplishing the second, finishing fifth at the Central Jersey Group IV Sectional Meet at Thompson Park and qualifying for this weekend’s state group meet.
”It was a different kind of race than I’m used to, “Ginez said of her performance in the sectional meet. “In most races this year I was just hanging with the front girls. I wasn’t sure what to expect going in. I didn’t know if I would take it out fast or hang back and make a late move. I just had to see how the race went.
”The race went really fast, especially the first mile. I hung back a little bit and I was able to pick up a couple of girls in the last mile. Stuff is always changing during a race. You can’t go in with a set strategy and expect it to play out exactly as you hoped. I definitely wanted to make sure I qualified so I decided it would be better to sacrifice time than risk getting caught going out too fast.”
In the end, Ginez finished with a time of 18:52, trailing the meet’s winner, Brianna Jackucewicz of Colts Neck by about 48 seconds. To parlay that into a berth in next Saturday’s all group meet she will need to finish among the top 10 runners whose teams do not qualify to advance.
Given that the qualifiers may extend beyond the top 10 fastest times, depending on which teams qualify, it should make strategy even more important.
”I try to stay relaxed,” she says of her pre race demeanor. “I’ll think about my race but I think more about my goals for the race and how I’m going to accomplish them. What I’m trying to do (is run with the fastest girls) but if I can’t do that I definitely have to be in the pack right after so I can get in with the wild cards.
”It’s going to require a pretty solid time. A lot of girls all over the state have been running low times this season. I just have to approach this race the way I approach every race, give it my all and hope it’s enough.”
Giving her all doesn’t always mean running her fastest. As the favorite at the Middlesex County Meet, she seemed to have more trouble fighting a muddy, chewed up course than she did the rest of the field. While her winning time of 19:46 was hardly her fastest, it represented a savvy effort under tough conditions in a championship meet.
”I knew that there were going to be some girls who were going to challenge me,” she said of the county meet. “Going in with the fastest time (on the course) just helped me to relax. I was just looking to win and not necessarily going for a great time. Given the conditions of the course, it wasn’t conducive to that. It was in pretty bad shape.”
With all of the success Ginez has had, it’s hard to believe that hers is a cross country career that might possibly have never happened.
As a young girl, Ginez was a soccer player and assumed that was the sport she would pursue in high school as well. But as a sixth-grader at the Crossroads Middle School her older brother Christian, convinced her to give running a try.
”My brother had recently started doing cross country and track and thought I was fast,” she recalls. “ He thought I could do well at track so he took me to the track in the summer and got me started.”
Since sixth graders were not allowed to compete on the school teams, Ginez ran on the cross country club but in her seventh grade year she won the Middlesex County championship for seventh and eighth graders.
Her passion for soccer was not quite gone yet though, and she returned to the sport for her eighth grade year. After much soul searching and extended discussions with her family it was finally decided that cross country would be in her athletic future. As a result, she is now part of a talented sophomore class that includes Jennifer Smilgis, Lyndsey Sample and Amanda Smilgis.
While there might have been some uncertainty of what athletic path to follow, it doesn’t mean that the South Brunswick coaching staff wasn’t fully aware of the talent that was in the pipeline.
”We try to take that effort to know what’s going on with the middle school,” Viking head coach Wil Rivera said. “To know who are the kids, how they are doing and try to foresee any kids who might help us in the future.
”Sophia wasn’t a surprise. We knew what she was capable of, it was just a matter of getting her into high school. We knew about her and we were excited. She’s a great athlete and coming in we knew she was going to have an impact right away.
”She’s competitive. She wants to be the best she can be and she realizes that comes with hard work. The hope I have for her is basically that she keeps working hard, doing what needs to be done and staying healthy. Luckily she hasn’t had any major injuries that have hurt her training.
”She won the county championship and the expectation is that she might win the county championship for the next two years. As she moves on it will be interesting to see how she finishes her season. The hope is this year she makes it to the state meet and places in the top 10 or 15.
”In the future I see her improving every year. I don’t see her plateauing, barring any injury or setback. In the sense of how far she can go, who knows?”
Regardless of the expectations, Ginez intends to continue doing what she’s been doing and letting the chips fall where they will.
”When you have a lot of success it can lead to cockiness,” she cautions. “I definitely try to keep it real and not get too concerned with winning races or not winning races. I just go out there and train to peak for the important meets. For some of the less important dual meets I can relax a little but every other race I just have to go out there and leave it out on the course.
”I definitely like the competitive aspect of it. It just relaxes me when I’m out there running. But I guess you’d have to be a runner to understand.”