Hayward,Calif.- Cardinal Newman Cross Country star Gwen Brockett is headed to the State Finals Saturday at Woodward Park in Fresno after performing very well at NCS, finishing in under 20 minutes with a 19:52 time and placing 17th overall. There was initially some confusion as she had not made top 5 individually and placed one spot out of qualification. However, one runner declined to advance to the CIF/State race, and after confirmation from the CIF, Brockett moved up one spot and earned a ticket for the meet in Fresno.

Freshman Ava Campbell ran well in Hayward also, finishing 46th in a time of 21:10, while Senior Emma Jovanovski placed 101st  in 24:25.  On the Boys side, Adrian Estrada just missed qualifying, finishing 20th with the top 18 moving on.to State.  

Brockett was selected to be Cardinal Newman Sports Female Athlete of the Month for the month of October after have great success as a first time distance runner this cross country season for CN. S

he opened up the season at the Viking Invitational where she finished 13th in the Junior/Senior 2 mile race with a 13:14. She followed that up with a dominant performance at Riverfront Regional Park against Ukiah. She won the 3.1 mile race with a 20:46 time, beating everyone else by at least 3 and a half minutes.

Gwen then beat raced 1v1 against her teammate, freshman Ava Campbell, in the 3.1 mile race against St. Vincent and Elsie Allen. St. Vincent and Elsie Allen did not register any runners for the women's varsity race. Brockett finished 18 seconds ahead of her original Riverfront time and won the race by 2 and a half minutes, with a 20:28 time.

Brockett faced a tough battle v. Analy at Ragle Ranch's 2.64 mile course, finishing 3rd with an 18:05 time, about 30 seconds behind Analy's Stella Finley and Rosemary Harris. For their last meet before playoffs, Newman raced in the highly competitive P. Wilder Cross Country Mariner Invitational at Hayward High School. Brockett placed 20th with a 19:31 time in the Women's 3 mile Varsity race.

In NBL Championships earlier this month at the 2.97 mile Spring Lake course, Brockett finished 3rd, coming closer than ever to beating out Analy's Finley and Harris, finishing with a 19:27, qualifying for NCS. In her interview with CN Athletics,

Brockett recalled the NBL Championship race when discussing her favorite moment of the season, "I would say the NBL last Thursday. That was an awesome race, really good competition. I was racing with 2 really fast Analy girls and they kept me at a really good pace the whole time and it was a lot of fun."

The NBL meet  showed how competitive the League is and how good Brockett is despite being new to the sport. Brockett played volleyball last Fall and ran track in the Spring, but she figured out she liked running, "I did track just for half the season last Spring and I ended up really liking running and so this Summer I really dedicated a lot of my time to it."

Brockett training has paid off and she has filled the void on the girls' team that opened when Holy Cross signee Siena Brunetti went to college this past Summer. Brockett has come in and is already registering better times than Brunetti had in her Senior year. Brockett is still only a Junior and has another year of development and training ahead. She is on the path to be one of the best runners Newman has seen in recent years.