From the sports archives: Mills' Sarah Gayer stuns at 2016 Junior Nationals

On the verge of entering her senior year at Mills as a cross-country and track standout, Gayer wrapped up her second summer season with the Menlo iGreyhounds Track Club Sunday at the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics Nationals at Sacramento City College.

And just when it looked as though Gayer’s summer finale might end in disappointment, she pulled off a major upset by claiming the 17-18-year-old division bronze medal in the 1,500-meter — an event she entered as the 21st seed — with a personal-record time of 4 minutes, 44.28 seconds, earning All-American honors in the process.

“That was a huge accomplishment for her,” iGreyhounds coach Jorge Chen said. “No one predicted her to qualify for the finals let alone to finish third.”

The 1,500 wasn’t even Gayer’s specialty event. A renowned distance runner — who took gold in both the 1,600 and 3,200 meters at the Peninsula Athletic League championships in the spring — Gayer entered the nationals seeded 13th in the 3,000 meter. But her performance in the long-distance event fell just short of the podium; she took 10th place in Saturday’s finals with a time of 10:42.31.

“Obviously she came up a little bit short ... but she totally made it up and surprised a lot of us by finishing third in the 1,500 finals,” Chen said.

Gayer is accustomed to running a full slate of distance events, oftentimes in the same day, from her varsity career at Mills. She said running on back-to-back days was no different.

What was different was she was going up against very few runners pairing both events at the Junior Olympics. Chen estimated only three competitors, including Gayer, ran in both the 1,500 and 3,000. Add to this, Gayer was one of the youngest competitors in the field — still 16, her November birthday landed her in the 17-18 bracket — she had her work cut out for her.

“Everybody went out really fast and everybody had a really great performance,” Gayer said. “I felt really good at the end and I was really happy to get third place.”

In her second year with the iGreyhounds, this marked her second time qualifying for the Junior Olympics. Coming off her sophomore year last summer, she earned a spot in the finals in the 15-16 division, but failed to make the podium.

“Clearly she has improved a lot,” Chen said. “But I still see a lot more improvement for her. I’m really proud of her that she got the All-American this last weekend. And just as much, I’m excited to see what she can do in this upcoming season … and obviously that will carry over to college as well.”

Entering this year’s Junior Olympics, Gayer had her sights set on medaling in both events.

“I was hoping to do well, top eight in both, but I didn’t have as good a race in my 3,000 as I did in my 1,500,” Gayer said. “But that’s OK, I’m really happy with how I did.”

IGreyhound did make history in the 3,000 though as Niki Iyer — who enters her senior year at Harker later this month — became the club’s first-ever gold medalist at the Junior Olympics. After being the only competitor in the preliminaries to crack the 10-minute mark with a time of 9:58.22, Iyer topped the podium in the finals with a 10:05.08.

Unlike Iyer, however, Gayer comes from the public-school background. This distinguishes her from most iGreyhounds runners past and present. The club was founded by Chen in 2008 with former Menlo School star Maddy Price running for the inaugural team.

Gayer approached Chen toward the end of her sophomore season and he immediately signed her up for the club season. Last season, she ran alongside another former Menlo standout, Lizzie Lacy, who competed with the iGreyhounds as a primer for her freshman season at Amherst College-Massachusetts.

“Jorge is great,” Gayer said. “I love working with Jorge. Everybody is good on the track side. It’s really fun going out and competing with them.”

Chen said he was impressed with Gayer’s talent and work ethic from the outset last season. But even he was surprised with Sunday’s bronze-medal run.

“All of us were ecstatic,” Chen said. “She’s a great kid. … She’s very humble and she works her butt off. She’s a natural leader. Of the distance runners, for the little girls and so forth, she’s a great role model. … She totally deserves getting a medal at junior nationals.”