MORGANTOWN, W.Va – It all started with an elementary school program called Girls on the Run, a fun way to introduce kids to long-distance running and connect them with others their age. And while that experience was pivotal in her life, Caroline Kirby was missing something: A team.
“When I started running in middle school, I really loved the team aspect,” Kirby said. “It meant a lot to me being a part of the team and seeing the varsity runners go to different meets I was like, ‘Well, I want to go to different meets. I want to continue going with my friends to races.’ That transitioned into high school, and [I] fell in love with the sport even more.”
Now a senior at University High School, Kirby has developed into one of the best runners in program history and, on Oct. 9, solidified that further with a commitment to Syracuse. Looking back on her four years with the program, it was clear she’s invested in the Hawks as much as they’ve invested in her.
“Man, freshman year a huge, valuable lesson I learned was, it sounds so cheesy, but trust the process,” Kirby said. “In the beginning, you always have to have the end goal in mind and keep that motivation in your head, know all this work isn’t for nothing, all this work is leading you down the road for something bigger and better. What I’ve learned is to trust yourself and trust your team – they’re the people who are with you every day pushing you and motivating you to do your best. I feel if I didn’t have the teammates I did, I don’t know where I’d be with running. Watching them make their D1 commitments and grow into the runners they’ve grown into today, it’s motivated me to be the person I am and strive to have that same end goal to run Division I.
“Big kudos to them.”
There, Kirby will be running with the cross country and track and field programs, picking the Orange over two Southeastern Conference programs, Tennessee and Kentucky. Her decision is similar to many high schoolers choosing a college, though not any less important – it felt like home.
“Stepping on campus, I knew it was the place for me,” she said. “It was super comfortable and a place I could see myself spending the next four years running on the team. Being able to communicate with a couple of other girls on the team and some freshmen I knew the dedication that they had for the sport and competing at that high level was important to me. And I could see coach Bell and the girls were dedicated to their program, and not just athletics but on the academics side. You could see they had big goals on both sides and that really drew me in.”
She also chose Syracuse due to their competitive nature. While the women placed fifth at the ACC Cross Country Championships last year, the men’s team dominated the conference. And although the 2019-20 track and field season was canceled due to COVID-19, to cap the 2018-19 season Syracuse runners Paige Stoner and Iliass Aouani won the women’s and men’s 5000-meter conference titles. It was their second titles of the meet, as Stoner picked up a title in the 3000-meter steeplechase and Aouani won the 10,000-meters. Aside from them, others on the team also placed well. Adding Kirby into the mix should make the Orange even more competitive.
While her senior season has been shortened greatly, in the last few meets Kirby has continued to build off her successful junior season. She placed third at the Wheeling Park Classic with a time of 19:38 and took second in the OVAC Championship race at 19:33. Her placement at Park helped UHS secure a second-place team finish behind Morgantown and her time helped lift the Hawks to a team title at OVACs over Morgantown. And she hopes to keep that momentum alive heading into regionals and states, but, as she notes, it will be tough to overcome her rival team’s strong front runner Irene Riggs as well as the strong pack MHS hosts.
“Coming off my commitment, winning OVACs was the cherry on top,” Kirby said. “Going in with our rivalry with Morgantown we knew it would be a two-team race, and we were hoping to come out on the other end. We’ve been working really hard and I’m so proud of the girls, we have a very young team and watching them grow and be super successful I was super happy. It sets a high note going into regionals and states.”
So what are Kirby’s freshman-year goals? Simple: Compete.
“I’d love to compete at the ACC Championships, help the team score points and help the team move on from NCAA Regionals to Nationals,” she said. “I’m excited to be on a high-caliber team and be in that atmosphere.
“I’m excited for the transition from senior year to college, I know it’s a big transition but I think I’m ready for it. I’m ready to compete at the collegiate level.”
Coming full circle, Kirby noted that while her success is determinate on many factors, coach Ed Frohnapfel and her trainers were a crucial piece of it, too.
“Shoutout to coach Ed and Viking Performance, they had a big impact on my training. Especially Ed, he’s done great things with the University program. It speaks for itself with his five-year girls’ state championship run and the boys have an extremely deep team and have a shot at pulling for a two-time state championship and even a three-time.”
All in all, Kirby is happy to have a senior season. This past Spring was hard on a lot of athletes, especially the seniors, and Kirby has learned to not take things for granted. But it also taught her how much she loved running.
“All of us expect to have our seasons. When that’s taken away it really sucks and you see the bigger picture,” she said. “Not having junior year track was extremely sad for me. I had big aspirations for my junior track season, but what I’ve taken away from it is how much I truly love the sport. Running is something that you can social distance and do on your own, but when you’re running and doing workouts on your own every day it really shows how much you truly love running and that it’s something you want to continue doing.”
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