Athlete of the Week: Terra Nova’s Carly Watts

Watts finished off her sweep of the dual PAL throwing crowns Saturday at Menlo-Atherton, claiming the discus championship with a throw of 44 feet, 1.5 inches. The previous Saturday, she won the shot put title with a throw of 152-10.

“I would say I was pretty confident going into PALs,” Watts said. “We’re just really trying to ramp up going into CCS and state.”

The Daily Journal Athlete of the Week is daring to dream beyond the elite stages of her final high school season though. That dream started March 22 when she signed to compete at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, an NCAA Division I program, on a partial athletic scholarship.

Beyond that, she dreams of someday reaching the ultimate stage, according to Terra Nova head coach Jared Steele.

“She talks about the Olympics all the time,” Steele said. “And that is sort of the driving thing when people ask: ‘What do you want to do after college? … I want to go to the Olympics. That’s what I want to do.’”

Cue up the “Eye of the Tiger” soundtrack — the unofficial anthem of Terra Nova Tigers athletics — because the training regiment Watts has undergone over the past year deserves a “Rocky” montage.

After last year’s state championship meet — where she took sixth in shot put and failed to advance past preliminaries in the discus — she took one week off. Then she dedicated herself to a fitness program that most high school students couldn’t even conceive of.

Watts dropped 40 pounds, taking her weight down to 215 pounds, with the guidance of her personal coach Rene Nielsen, her step-father, and a competitive power lifter. She has since added muscle mass and has advanced by leaps and bounds from where she was this time last season.

“If we compare what she looks like now compared to what she looked like this time last year, it’s like night and day,” Steele said.

So are the results.

Her marks at the 2018 PAL championships were 143-9 in discus and 43.7 in shot put. This year, she has topped out at 157-4 in discus, the best throw of any CCS athlete this year, April 6 at the Arcadia Invitational. Her personal record of 45-6 in the shot put March 23 at the Serra Top 7 Invitational in also tops in CCS.

While she didn’t eclipse either of these marks at the PAL championships, her top throws over the past two weeks are still better than anyone in CCS this year. Not that Watts is minding anyone else’s progress, as was the case at the Arcadia meet.

“Honestly, I was not focused on who I was competing against at all,” Watts said. “I was just super zoned in on my own technique. … I was not even paying attention to other girls that were competing. I was not even aware I took third place until it was over.”

Watts may face her biggest challenge Saturday at the CCS prelims in Gilroy. With the last of her two throws scheduled for a 2 p.m. start, the senior will have to boogie back home and ready for Terra Nova’s prom, to be held in San Francisco later that night.

Then comes the final chapter of her prestigious two-year high school career — yes, she only started competing as a serious varsity thrower last season — as she looks to repeat as a dual-gold CCS champ. Then perhaps a new calling at the collegiate level.

“Right now, I’m focused the end of the season,” Watts said. “Then going into college, I’ll see my events that I’m best at. … A lot of people I’ve talked to about it, they say you’ll probably be a pretty good hammer thrower.”