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For a school with less than 300 students, Anzar High’s athletic program consistently produces top-notch competitors, and the track team is no exception. Although the squad had only six members last year, they won the Central Coast Section division for the first time in 12 years and advanced to the Central Coast Championships as a team for the first time in 10 years.
“Our freshman, Isabella Briceno-Nicholson, took first place in the 300-meter hurdles,” coach Monica Jo Gilmore said. “Angelina Tran and Zoe McDougall took second and third. Bella also placed first in the high jump and second in the long jump and the 100-meter event.”
As Gilmore’s daughter, Briceno-Nicholson had a head start in the sport. She said she first hit the track when she was nine months old, learning to walk, and credits her mother as her biggest supporter.
Gilmore has coached for over 23 years in the Central Coast and began coaching at Anzar three years ago, in part to be there for her daughter. She said the team’s scrappiness comes from the athletes’ hearts and willingness to trust the coaches.
“I always try to tell them to catch a vision of what they can do,” she said, “first as an individual, but ideally as a team. And if we don’t have a full team, they can continue to improve and go as far as possible as an individual.”
Briceno-Nicholson’s high jump win against athletes from more than 30 schools at the division finals qualified her individually for a place in the Central Coast Championships.
“Just making it there was a huge success,” Gilmore said. “She didn’t go past that, but the high jump was a new event for her, so seeing her do so well in that competition was pretty incredible.”
Briceno-Nicholson’s results last year were impressive by any standard. In addition to setting the record for the 300-meter hurdles, she did the same for the 100-meter hurdles, the long jump, the high jump and the 400-meter dash.
And she shows no sign of slowing down. She has already broken the school record in the triple jump in her first attempt at the event, with all three of her jumps exceeding the previous record of 27’4″ with 32’5″ being her personal best.
The team has also grown this year, with five girls and a boys team that fluctuates between two and four athletes.
“We’re still trying to build up the boys side,” Gilmore said, “but our girls are already looking just as strong as they were last year and a little stronger now because we have two other girls to add to the mix.”
Gilmore cites senior Angelina Tran, one of the team captains, as a standout, saying, “She is just an amazing athlete.”
Tran began running while attending San Juan School, participating in track and cross country in seventh grade. The pandemic kept her from competing in the eighth grade, but she began running cross country her first year at Anzar and continued for all four years.
“My passion is cross country,” she said. “I love to run and recently have fallen in love with it. I had a different coach from freshman to junior year and kind of de-escalated, but I’ve hit my biggest improvement and made my comeback as a senior.”
Tran credits her improvement to intensive training during the summer, which she said helped keep her in shape.
“I like how hard running is,” she said, “ and challenging myself to do things I’ve never done or that aren’t comfortable. I like pushing myself to the limits.”
Tran said she looks forward to improving her mile time and hopes for a great season. But mostly, she looks forward to the fun she says she will have with her teammates.
I love how motivated everyone is,” she said. “Even when we’re doing hard workouts and hard events, everyone’s always really positive.”
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