By Caroline ’14 and Christina ’14

When Varsity Basketball point guard Clara ’14 decided to join the Varsity Track team during the 2010-2011 school year to strength­en her endurance and stay in shape during the basketball off-season, she had no idea that she was about to master a second sport. Despite hav­ing joined the team without any prior experience, Clara’s speed and endurance quali­fied her to compete in the 400-meter race in the Califor­nia Interscholastic Federation (CIF) finals on Jun. 3-4, 2011, finishing sixth with a time of 59.0 seconds. Her personal best is 58.8 seconds, just 3.28 seconds shy of the Marlbor­ough record, 55.52.

“She is an amazing runner,” teammate Uriel ’14 said. “There are some people who start track as freshmen who don’t really know their goals, but she had a natural talent that boosted her up to [CIF] level. It’s really surprising and great for our team, too.”

This year, Clara led the Varsity Basketball team in scoring and helped bring the Mustangs to the second round of the CIF finals. She was elected MVP of both the Marlborough team and of the Sunshine League over­all, and was also chosen out of thousands to be named All-CIF second team, a rec­ognition for players that CIF considers to be ex­ceptional. After this year’s basketball season ended, she was encouraged to re­join the Track team by Head Track Coach Jimmie Grant and Athletics Assistant and Assistant Varsity Basketball Coach Shaina Zaidi.

Clara said that she found that the two sports comple­ment each other: basketball is running intensive, which helped her push herself at the ends of races, and track increased her endurance.

“The one thing I learned in track was that if you don’t run your hardest, you’ll be running for a longer amount of time, so you better run faster. And then that mentality transferred into basketball, so I would be able to have the energy to run fast­er,” she said.

Zaidi agreed that Clara’s time on the Varsity Track team was beneficial.

“Basketball is all about quickness, and she was able to transfer [what she learned on track] into a sport that was dear to her heart,” Zaidi said.

Though time management is difficult because her club basketball team, California Storm, practices on the same days as track, Clara is dedi­cated to pursuing both sports.

“I have to sacrifice some things in track and some things in basketball to make it work, but in the end it’ll work out,” she said.

Zaidi said that she thinks that Clara’s talent at both sports will help her reach her goal of playing NCAA Divi­sion 1 basketball in college.

“She is committed,” Zaidi said. “[Now] it’s about continu­ously being open to coaching and instruction, and growing and maturing not only in bas­ketball and track but also as an individual.”