The nation's fastest distance freshman on the track this past season, a coach only gets the chance to work with an athlete like Philip once in his career. Some of his abilities are his natural talent, but the more I get to know him, the more I realize that his accomplishments are bred from a special determination that allows him to dig way down deep and to get more out of his body than most runners could every imagine. If you think he is running *just* off of talent, you are gravely mistaken - this kid is focused and knows himself well enough to know when the right time is to summon that supreme effort.

His XC season last year was amazing... he came into the season with some problematic injuries and strength imbalances. To his credit he was willing to be patient, he rehabbed diligently, and when he started running in October he had 8 weeks of incredible improvement.

He won the Frosh/Soph race at the Clovis Invite, with the fastest freshman time of the day. Then he placed 4th overall at our League meet. The following week he placed 3rd at the CCS meet - beating all 3 runners who had beaten him at leagues! Then he placed 29th in the D2 state meet, the second fastest freshman in the state on that day. The following week he won the freshman race at a meet that included freshman from all of the western states in the country - again avenging a defeat by beating the one freshman who had beaten him at states!

It was incredible, and when track season came around he only continued to improve as he won the "future stars" mile at the prestigious Arcadia invite and became the first freshman *ever* to take home the CCS 3200 crown.

Looking towards the upcoming season, I'm sure Philip has lofty personal goals, but to be honest my goal for Philip's year of running are simply for him to stay healthy and to continue to improve. As long as those things happen, and he can continue to perform on the biggest stage when it counts, then its going to be a really, really fun year!