Daily Journal Girls’ Cross Country Runner of the Year: Mills’ Miya Cheng

Upon rejoining the Lady Vikings in the third week of August, however, it was clear the senior was ready to work.

“She had that fire in her belly,” Cappel said, “and that was great to see.”

As the old saying goes, it ain’t how you start, it’s how you finish. And Cheng finished her Mills career with a flourish to earn Daily Journal Girls’ Cross Country Runner of the Year honors. She saved the best race of her career for the PAL Championships, winning a race for the first time in her varsity career on the 2.95-mile stage at the Crystal Springs Cross Country Course to win the PAL title — Mills’ first since 2016 when Sarah Gayer took home the crown.

From there, Cheng overcame a disappointing performance in the Central Coast Section Championships, settling for fourth place in the Division IV race in her final competitive run at Crystal Springs. Two weeks later, she delivered a top 20 performance at the CIF State Cross Country Championships, taking 13th place in the Division IV race with a personal record 18 minutes, 15.8 second on the 5,000-meter course at Woodward Park in Fresno.

Now, with Cheng and her fellow senior Katie Yee set to graduate this year, Cappel is looking to the future. That’s where Cheng’s impact could mean as much to the program as her historic accomplishment at PAL finals.

“She’s a joy to have,” Cappel said. “We’re trying to figure out how to clone Miya, but she’s set a great example for the younger kids. ... We’re going to be solid next year, and a lot of that is because of Miya, encouraging the girls, especially the younger girls.”

While Cheng’s PAL championship was a bolt from the blue, the senior said she instinctually had a good feeling about it just prior to the Nov. 9 race. It was a beautiful day in Belmont, and she was coming off her best varsity race to date, a second-place finish Oct. 16 at PAL #2 with a PR of 18:48 at Crystal Springs. That good feeling turned out to be prescient as she knocked more than 30 seconds off her PR with a championship time of 18:17.9.

“It was unexpected,” Cheng said. “I didn’t really go out for the win, I go out for the time. So it was a good add on to my PR.”

Cheng ran the last mile of the race by herself, separating from the field.

“I didn’t see anybody,” Cheng said. “I only saw the time. ... I did not expect that time to be up there when I came down the stretch.”

That’s where the accounts of Cheng and Cappel differ. Cappel had a great vantage point from the crew area at the finish line, and his 5-3 senior was looking as strong as she ever had, he said.

“When she turned that corner and she had maybe 400 (yards) to go ... she was just chugging along,” Cappel said. “I think she could have gone another two or three miles.”

The way Cheng tells it, she couldn’t have gone another two or three yards. After leaving it all on the course, she lost her feet after crossing the finish line. Cappel, though, was right there to catch her.

“He was there for the PAL finishing race, so he helped me get back up and he hugged me,” Cheng said. “So that was a really, really nice celebration.”

Nov. 30 at the CIF State Cross Country Championships was another cause for celebration. In recording the fastest time from a San Mateo County runner from all five girls’ races at the meet, Cheng ran a faster time than her PAL performance by over two seconds despite the longer course.

Cheng’s last cross country race for Mills also had a hint of magic to it, as the time and placement mimicked her former teammate Jackie Pan. As a senior in 2023, Pan (now a freshman at UC Irvine) finished the state meet in 13th place, identical to Cheng’s 2024 finish. Their times were also one-tenth apart from one another, with Pan recording a 18:15.9 to Cheng’s 18:15.8 — a phenomenon Cheng wasn’t even remotely shooting for.

“No, I was not,” Cheng said. “It was really a coincidence. But leading up to the state time, I just wanted to have fun because it was going to be my last cross country meet.”

Since the finish of her varsity cross country career, Cheng garnered another something in common with another former Mills great, as she plans to run in the same New England Small College Athletic Association Conference as did Gayer.

While Gayer ran for the NCAA Division III program at Amherst College, Cheng committed in December her top school of choice, Middlebury College in Vermont, and will look to run as a walk-on to the cross country and track teams. The walk-on agreement was made prior to her postseason with Mills. She said her times at the PAL and CIF championships both qualify for the Division III requirement.