CALEDONIA — Alexis Pace knows what it is like to be part of a team.
Even though cross country is an individual sport, the participants can use their teammates as rabbits, or pace-setters, to push them to train harder and to lower their times.
The team aspect helped Pace early in her career as a cross-country runner at Caledonia High School. Through the years, though, the number of girls cross-country runners at the school dwindled to the point Pace was the only member of the school’s girls “team.”
But instead of being intimidated by the fact she would have to train with the boys this season, Pace used the experience as motivation. The training paid dividends last year, when Pace delivered a top-10 finish at the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 4A State meet in Clinton.
Despite the success, Pace never imagined athletics would help her take the next step to college. That changed earlier this month when Pace visited Blue Mountain College, a private liberal arts college a little more than 40 miles northwest of Tupelo.
On Wednesday, Pace made it official when she signed an athletic scholarship to compete in cross country for the NAIA school.
“They had pretty much everything I needed and that I was looking for, so that seemed like the best decision I could make,” said Pace, who wants to be a radiographer. “When I started running, I thought it was something extra curricular that I could do. Every year I kept sticking with it I got better and better and I didn’t give up on it. Then I found out it was something I actually liked to do.”
Pace earned All-State honors last November by finishing 10th with a time of 22 minutes, 43.30 seconds in the 5-kilometer race at the Mississippi High School Activities Association Class 4A State meet at Choctaw Trails in Clinton. Her time of 22:15.84 at the Class 4A, Region 2 meet at Pontotoc was her best of the season.
Pace said she initially was concerned about being the only girl cross-country runner, but she knew she couldn’t let that stop her. She said training with the boys made her “push harder” because she wanted to compete with them and get better.
Pace was a member of the school’s cross-country team when former standout Jessica Comer was leading the team. She smiled and said she never could catch Comer, but she learned from that experience. She credited the members of the boys team for making her feel welcome this season and helping push her to be her best. She hopes she can build on that at Blue Mountain, where she knows the workload will be heavier and she will have to juggle her studies. She plans to study radiology in college.
“I knew the more I pushed myself the better I could be,” Pace said. “I wanted to try to push myself and see what I could accomplish. I did surprise myself. I did not think I could get 10th in the state.”
Caledonia cross country and track and field coach James Reed said Pace has worked hard this season and deserves everything she gets.
“She stayed out here when as a senior there were no other runners and she could have done something else,” Reed said. “She passed two runners coming up the hill coming in to the finish line (at the Class 4A meet). That is the mark of somebody with a lot of heart when you have got that last quarter-mile and you’re fighting to finish it. That is the kind you can put in a job in the real world and is going to produce.”
In the spring, Pace is competing in the 1,600 and 3,200 meters and on the 4×800 relay team as a member of the track and field team. Reed said Pace’s example will help set the example for 10 seventh-graders and three ninth-graders he hopes will make up a talented squad in a few years.
“She has got a lot of heart,” Reed said. “She could have been a leader if we had had some more.”
“The first thing she did when I talked to her about going to Blue Mountain was she said, ‘I know I am going to major in radiology,’ so she has her head on right,” Reed said. “She knows academics are going to get her where she needs to be. That is why I love what I am doing.”
Pace never imagined athletics would help her when it came time to go to college. But she said she has matured as a runner since she started as a seventh-grader. She said her love for the sport and running has helped her stick with it through all of the training with the boys and all of the individual work she did to stay sharp.
Looking back to her junior season, Pace said she made significant strides from a 34th-place finish at the Class 4A State meet, where she finished with a time of 23:37.1. She said she wanted to show everyone that being the only member of a team didn’t matter because she was going to push herself to the best she could be. It turns out Pace’s best was even better than she thought because it has helped her take the next step athletically and academically.
“I know it is going to be a lot of work, but I am going to stick with it and try to do the best I can,” Pace said. “I didn’t think running was going to be that big of an impact on life, but it has been.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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