Today I’d like to recognize the amazing athletic progression made by one of our Track and Field sharks. This 2024 graduate has just started her journey and has already broken records, consistently shattering her personal best times. This outstanding sophomore athlete is none other than Samantha Walsten (10). During freshman year she was coming off a brutal knee injury after falling off a hurdle and a long-lasting quarantine. She ran the 100-meter hurdle and 300-meter hurdle times of 21.92 and 59.18 in her first high school track meet against Norco High school. As the season started coming to an end, Samantha ran a surprising time of 16.73 in the 100 hurdles and 49.63 in the 300 hurdles as her season’s best times, classifying her as a qualifier for CIF prelims as a freshman. She continues to pinpoint what she needs to fix and works hard to fix it during practice. Snapping her trail down quicker, staying closer to the hurdle, fixing her arms, she makes sure her form is precise enough to beat anyone who races her.

This year she started the season off by beating her own personal record of 16.73 with a 16.37 in 100-meter hurdles and a 50.24 in 300-meter hurdles. She craved victory and continued to push hard at practices, even through her spring break. She finally broke both her personal record in 100-meter hurdles and 300-meter hurdles with shocking times of 15.81 and 49.10 at the Redondo festival where she also beat the meet record of 16.47. These times made her a qualifier for Arcadia Invitational, a national high school track and field meet held every year at Arcadia High School where high schools have the opportunity to represent their school and even state by racing the best athletes in the United States. According to the Arcadia Invitational website, in order to qualify for Arcadia, hurdlers would’ve had to run a 16 or lower for 100-meter hurdles and for 300-meter hurdles an outstanding time of 47.29 or lower. Even though Samantha didn’t qualify in 300-meter hurdles for Arcadia, she later broke her 300-meter hurdle time record with an outstanding 47.71 at Roosevelt Highschool, dropping a whole 2 secs in the 300. When she raced at Arcadia in the 100-meter hurdles, she broke her personal record with a season’s best of 15.69.

When asked about what she thinks her future looks like she says, “I want to continue track into college and maybe even further”. When asked what she thinks her future in track would look like, she replied, “I’m not really sure what my goals are seeing as it’s only my sophomore year, but I would say this year my goal is to break the school record 15.54 and maybe even break 15. In the 300 I want to get down to probably 44, maybe even less, I just have to run my races at the moment and think about my senior year later”.

As I asked her about her secret to success, I asked her what techniques she uses to stay consistent at breaking her records and she replied by mentioning, “I think it’s honestly not really technical. Yes it helps for me to have good technique between my legs, my arms, and my speed, but a big part of it is also how I think about it mentally because running towards an object and forcing myself to jump or hurdle doesn’t always work, but you also have to be in a good headspace and you believe you can do it yourself because if I don’t believe in myself it’s never going to work and just because I have one bad day I don’t let it mess up any other day” and when I asked about who she’d credit her success to, she said, “I would probably credit my success to my coaches and my parents because without my coaches I would probably be trash and I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am now and without my parents, I wouldn’t even be in track because they pay for everything and support me with everything I do. I would also credit my friends because they’re always supporting me and cheering me on making me want to do better and my amazing boyfriend who encourages me to put my all in during every race and motivates me when I don’t do as well as I believe I should’ve”. After this interview at the home track meets against Corona High School today, Samantha Walsten broke the 100-meter hurdle record of 15.54 set by Shereen Sutherland in 2011, when she ran a 15.53.

Samantha Walsten’s journey has just begun and she doesn’t plan on letting anything stop her from being the best of the best. She also happens to be my amazing girlfriend and I have promised her even after I graduate, that I will never miss a track meet. I am her biggest fan and always will be.