Journey through Northern California in between races in Portland and San Diego helped Pennsylvania star, North Carolina State signee mentally and emotionally to produce best cross country race of high school career 

By Landon Negri for DyeStat

Frame of mind and perspective can mean everything to a cross country runner.

Everyone wants to win. But second place doesn’t seem like such a consolation prize when you’ve been stuck in 13th.

How about some crazy travel? Or a little illness? Marlee Starliper dealt with that by taking a drive and looking to a higher power.

It all came together Saturday for the senior from Northern High in Pennsylvania at the 41st Foot Locker Cross Country Championships at Morley Field in San Diego’s Balboa Park.

RESULTS | GIRLS RACE REPLAY | MARLEE STARLIPER POST-RACE INTERVIEW

Starliper enjoyed a breakthrough race, finishing as the national runner-up – and a close one at that – on the 5-kilometer course in 16 minutes, 46.8 seconds. She pushed winner Zofia Dudek of Ann Arbor Pioneer in Michigan to the finish, with Dudek winning in 16:45, as the athletes elevated to the Nos. 5 and 6 performers in meet history at Balboa Park.

Starliper, a North Carolina State signee, has by her own admission, underachieved in San Diego the last two years, finishing 13th each time and earning All-America status. Saturday took her to another level just seven days after placing fifth at the Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Ore.

“I was just so heartbroken the past two years when I was 13th here,” Starliper said. “I knew that, honestly, they were some of my worst races of the year.

“I’m so thankful,” she added. “My whole main goal – because you never know at these races – was just for me to be able to prove myself and run to the best of my capability.”

Starliper’s time cut more than a minute off her mark of 17:54.9 a year ago. More impressively, it registered as the fastest second-place time ever at the Foot Locker Nationals and would’ve been a girls’ winning time in all but five of the meet’s previous 40 editions.

“I just kept thinking when I was sprinting and trying to get (Dudek), ‘I’m chasing down the dream and giving it all I have.’” Starliper said. “Yeah, I mean, of course I wanted to win. It was great and fun having a battle like that.”

The duel provided one of the meet’s more dramatic finishes, with the outcome the fifth-closest margin of victory for the champion. Ironically, the tightest race in meet history also produced a winner from Michigan a decade earlier, with Rochester’s Megan Goethals prevailing in the 2009 final over Chelsey Sveinsson of Greenhill, Texas by 0.2 seconds. 

“I made my move going up the hill, and I knew in that third mile I just had to trust my instincts to know when to make my move,” Starliper said. “I tried to make it a good one and Zofia came up on me pretty strong going up the smaller hill. And I was just like, ‘I am staying on her,’ and then I kind of waited until the straightaway just so that I could gun for the finish.”

She didn’t quite catch Dudek, who returned to the U.S. a week after placing fifth for Poland by running 14:22 in a 4-kilometer race at the European U-20 Championships in Portugal, but it was a strong finish and the culmination of a journey that was particularly interesting in the days in between NXN and Foot Locker.

Starliper, the Pennsylvania state champion and Northeast Regional winner, ran in rainy, muddy conditions a week ago at Glendoveer Golf Course in Portland, but, unlike many of her Midwest counterparts who competed in both events, she did not go home before flying out to San Diego. She stayed on the West Coast.

“We decided to make a little vacation of it,” she said. “We actually drove down the coast from Portland, so that was fun.”

That meant driving the beautiful Oregon coast before encountering the Redwoods of Northern California.

“I got to run in the Redwoods,” she said, “and that was the best run ever.”

Thursday morning, she woke up with a mild fever but recovered quickly, she said.

She said she felt better Friday and there was hardly a trace on race day.

“This morning, my throat was slightly scratchy, but that was it,” she said.

Throughout the week, Starliper said she stayed consistent and kept her faith. She said it made all the difference in “her best race ever.”

“My faith and my running just go hand in hand,” she said. “And this is absolutely – because of all the prayer and just having to trust that I was going to be able to run at full strength and healthy for this race – I have never felt so close to God and so relaxed.

“That was honestly the most special thing about this race.”

Starliper and fellow senior Alyssa Hendrix of Riverview, Fla. – 15th place Saturday in 17:57.4 to earn the final All-America third-team honor – are both headed to North Carolina State, and both have run in San Diego each of the past three years.

So it was only fitting they both enjoyed their best performances at Balboa Park in their last opportunities to compete at a national prep cross country championship meet.

In a sense, Hendrix said, they’re both already are like teammates, trading comments, tips and good cheer this week.

“Not only is Marlee a great runner,” Hendrix said, “she’s an even better person. So I’m really excited to work with her the next couple of years.”

Beavercreek, Ohio senior Taylor Ewert, who was runner-up at NXN by an even closer margin than Starliper was Saturday – 0.7 seconds behind North Rockland NY senior Katelyn Tuohy – before placing sixth at the Foot Locker final, appreciated that it was only the two of them among all the female cross country athletes throughout the nation who were able to place in the top 10 of both championship races this year.

“We both did these national meets three years in a row and we both started as not the best high school runners, but we worked our way up,” said Ewert, an Arkansas signee who also finished in the top 10 in both events last year.

“I knew that between NXN and Foot Locker, Marlee and I were going to be some of the top competitors. She is such a strong runner and it’s kind of cool that I did really well last week, and I know she didn’t have her best race but she still was fifth, and then this week, we kind of switched spots, so it’s cool.”