Palisadian Chapus Excels at Mt. SAC Relays

She's only a junior in high school, but breaking records is already getting old for Palisadian Cami Chapus.

The reigning CIF state cross country champion was a blur on the track Friday and Saturday at Mt. San Antonio College, leading the Harvard-Westlake High girls track team to three relay victories and two national-leading marks at the 53rd annual Mt. SAC Relays in Walnut. 

It started Friday evening, as Chapus trailed two runners when she was handed the baton for the third leg of the 4 x 800 Invitational race. She sprinted into the lead around the first turn and by the time she had completed her two laps, anchor Amy Weissenbach had more than a 50-meter lead and the Wolverines went on to post a national-leading time of 9:03.77--easily the fastest outdoor time in the country this year and a new Mt. SAC record by 2.23 seconds.  

"No matter what I wanted to get off to a fast start and when I saw them in front of me it motivated me even more," said Chapus, who starred in track, softball and soccer at St. Matthew's Parish School. "I was just hoping I didn't trip. We had a great meet at Arcadia last week and we weren't expecting a national record here--we focused more on effort and happened to get it [the record] anyway."

Chapus and the Wolverines returned Saturday to establish yet another national-leading time in the sprint medley Invitational. Chapus ran the two-lap anchor leg in a blazing 2:08 flat as Harvard-Westlake clocked 3:57.23.

The sprint relay is a unique event in that its four legs are run at varying distances. The first is 400 meters, the second and third are 200 and the last is 800. Chapus likes the variety of the race.

"It's fun to be able to run these different distances," she said. "We ran this at the New Balance Nationals [in North Carolina] in June, so I'm familiar with it."

Showing no signs of fatigue, Chapus took the track again two hours later and again ran the anchor leg for the Wolverines in the distance medley Invitational race. The foursome of Weissenbach, K.C. Cord, Hansson and Chapus won the event in 11:45.74, but couldn't quite surpass the national-leading 11:40.89 they had set the week before at the Arcadia Invitational.

"As a team it's great to go and take the lead," Chapus said. "It's such a different vibe this year because the last time we were here it was pouring rain, we were running the Mt. SAC rain course and there were puddles everywhere."

Rain or shine, Chapus always brings her 'A' game to the most important meets, thus it's no surprise she and her teammates excelled on back-to-back weekends against the toughest competition.