“It’s all about Character, commitment, pride and guts. But mostly it’s about GUTS!”  Girls Track and Cross Country coach Steve Golemon said and this quote perfectly fits Karla Presa, who recently qualified for the Regional track meet in the 3200 Meters as a freshman.

“My inspiration for running is one of my friends who would always say how I’m terrible at running,” Presa said. “I knew she was joking but I wanted to show her how fast I could run and prove that I could actually beat her!”

Presa was one of only ten freshmen girls who competed at the varsity level this year and the only one to qualify for regionals.

“Going to Regionals as a freshman is awesome! Karla is only ten seconds from beating senior Alexis Torres’ school record time and that is really amazing,” junior distance runner Michaela Porterfield said. “I hope she keeps up her running because if she keeps this up, she will do great in the future.”

Torres, who will be attending Baylor University this fall and running cross country, has been a real source of both inspiration and encouragement for the younger runner. “I pushed Karla a lot this year because her talent reminded me of how I was alone as a distance runner at her age,” Torres said.

Presa’s best time for the cross-country course this past fall was 12:46, but by the end of the year, at the District Meet, her time had improved to 12:09, improving her two mile time by a whopping 37 seconds.

“Karla has improved a lot from the cross country season,” Golemon said. “She got to end this season a lot better than she did with her cross country season when she didn’t get to know the feeling of running at regionals, but now she does.”

For next year, Presa is focused on trying to beat the BHS record that was finally broken by Torres last school year.

“Watching her run was exciting and being her mentor was fun,” Torres said. “I hope to see her break my school records.  She’s a great runner and watching her succeed brought me joy, especially knowing how she felt as a runner.”

Presa finished seventh out of fifteen at Regionals in Calallen with a time of 12:19. She kept up with the top group for the whole race until the last two laps, but now that she’s experienced the competitiveness of Regionals, there is no doubt she will be back.

“I’m expecting her to attend regionals a lot in the future and even state,” Golemon said.