Following significant strides in seventh and eighth grade racing against college and professional athletes, in addition to multiple Emerging Elite titles at Nike Outdoor Nationals, Kansas sprinter ready for next challenge in return to Oregon
By Mary Albl of DyeStat
You would be hard-pressed to find a sprint race Aria Pearce wouldn’t embrace.
At age 14, Pearce has toed the line against competition from high school standouts to college athletes and even some professional performers, traveling from New York to California, seeking out the best of the best to race against.
There’s really not a race Pearce has turned down, including the opportunity to compete July 8-9 at the USATF U20 Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore.
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“It’s a great source of competition,” Pearce said of the higher-level racing. “At my first college meet and even my first high school race, I remember being super nervous, but as it progressed, I did start to feel like I belonged there and I knew what I was doing, and I could compete really well against them.”
Pearce, an incoming ninth-grader in Saint George, Kansas, has garnered the reputation as the fastest middle schooler in the country, and with good reason.
Pearce boasts all-conditions personal bests of a wind-aided 11.50 seconds in the 100-meter dash and a wind-aided 23.79 in the 200, winning the historic Kansas Relays against an entire college field.
She’s coming off two first-place finishes at Nike Outdoor Nationals, and is set to race both the 100 and 200 in Eugene.
“My dad (Nathan) has told me you are there and you want to do good, but I definitely have to relax and focus on the experience,” Pearce said. “And see if I can get some PRs, especially against good competition.”
Growing up playing basketball, volleyball and flag football, Aria and her father Nathan Pearce, who serves as her coach, didn’t start to focus on her running, specifically sprinting – she also excels in the long jump – until just a few years ago.
The AAU Junior Olympic Games in Humble, Texas, was her first big impact competing in the 13-year-old age group, running 25.40 in the 200 and 12.36 in the 100, finishing in the top 10 in both events.
“We really figured out I had a thing for (sprinting) my sixth grade year, which was when my first AAU meet was,” Pearce said.
At the time, living in Sharon Springs, about 30 minutes from the…
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