According to Aurora Greenmen girls’ track coach Greg Cicero, the times at the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division I regional meet last week were even faster than usual. Sophomore Isabella Cicero was up for the challenge, taking third place in the 400-meter dash with a personal and school record 56.20 seconds to earn her first career state berth last Friday at Austintown-Fitch’s Austintown Greenwood Stadium in Youngstown.
“She is extremely excited,” noted the second-year coach. “I think her confidence grew so much after that race on Friday night. She was just carrying herself differently. What she realized is that she works extremely hard in the offseason. She lifts a ton of weights and she works on some speed stuff and I think she realizes all of that hard work she does is paying off now.”
Isabella will race in the 400-meter dash preliminaries of the OHSAA Division I state meet at The University of Dayton’s Welcome Stadium on Friday beginning at 4 p.m.
She will enter the state meet not only having recorded a personal best time in the 400-meter dash but also a school record, eclipsing the previous school record she set just a week ago when she became the Division I district 400-meter dash champion.
Before the Division I district meet, the school record in the 400-meter dash belonged to Sue Cherry who set the school record in 1981 with a time of 57.70 seconds but Isabella eclipsed that time in consecutive weeks.
“It is not an easy task and just to have the focus and two races in back-to-back weeks when you can go do that just shows pure dedication,” said Coach Cicero.
According to Coach Cicero, after Isabella qualified for the 400-meter dash finals by taking by placing fourth in the preliminaries with a time of 57.80 seconds on Wednesday, she came up with a new strategy. He said she recognized the two runners that would lead the pack would be North Canton Hoover senior Amahrie Harsh and Twinsburg senior Savannah Swanda and decided to keep up with them as best as she could and that would net her a state berth.
“Sometimes when you get to the regional finals, you just hope everything goes right and her race was an example of everything going right,” he added. “She was extremely focused and ran the first 200 meters pretty hard and then finished even stronger.”
Isabella entered the regional meet as a regional qualifier in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes and a member of the 4×400 relay. She did not advance to the finals in both of her other sprint events but the 4×400 relay team did qualify for the finals.
“Prelim day is really tough,” Coach Cicero noted. “You have no distance events so it is just a sprint meet and there is not a lot of time between the events. She ran a really smart 400-meter dash prelim and then was pretty tired by the time we got to that 200 to have enough in the tank to finish it off.”
Isabella not only etched her name in school history with her time in the finals but it also ranked as a top 10 time in the State of Ohio. Her ascent in the 400-meter dash was even more impressive considering she had only started competing in that race two years ago.
Coach Cicero said that the 400-meter dash actually complimented Isabella’s strengths.
“She has that mix of endurance and speed and she can use that in the 400-meter dash,” he said. “She finishes the race extremely hard in the last 100 meters. A lot of times when you see her in the 200 you are not quite sure where she is going to finish but in every race she has run this year she brings it in the last 100 meters and moves up in the race every time.”
With one more week left in Isabella’s track season, she still has one more preliminary race she needs to run at the state meet before she can think about competing to become a state placer.
According to Coach Cicero, she is also embracing being the only Aurora representative at the state meet this year.
“She is excited,” Coach Cicero said. “She just wrote down some goals on Saturday morning on what she needs to do in the preliminary races to make it to finals. She was asking how many people can come down and watch. She is really excited and wants to do it for the school.”
