BY GREG LUCA | STAFF WRITER
After Kaina Martinez ran a 54.40 second split to give Texas A&M-Kingsville the lead in the women’s 1,600-meter relay final at the Division-II national championships, senior anchor and Rio Grande City alum Kathy Treviño took the baton and sprinted toward her career-long goal.
“I saw she put in her effort, now I have to put in mine,” Treviño said. “There’s no way I’m going to let her down, or let the rest of the team down, after she went out there and showed her heart.”
Treviño came through with a split of 55.32 — not her best, but enough for her team to set a school record time of 3:41.22 and secure a national title last month in Allendale, Michigan.
The win provided the perfect career ending for Treviño, a former state qualifier in the 400 dash at RGC.
“I was just really trying to finish the race, and when I finished and saw we came in first, I was just like, ‘Wow. We just won,” Treviño said. “We had been working for this all year long, and we talked about it right before the race. How no matter what happens, we already knew we were champions, because we worked our butts of. Knowing that we won it was like, ‘Wow, I’m a part of a winning team.’ It was just a good feeling.”
Treviño said she was nervous entering the final leg of the race, knowing that her teammates were depending on her to hold the lead.
Coming into the final 200 meters, Treviño saw on the video monitor that she was just narrowly ahead, giving her an extra push down the final stretch.
“We wanted to end it with a bang, and we did,” Treviño said. “That was the whole point.”
The team developed high hopes very early in the outdoor season. Treviño and Martinez were veterans of the relay, as was Amber Perry. Jasmine Miller, a freshman, was the missing link that put the team over the top.
Treviño fit in seamlessly as the team’s anchor, a role she’s consistently held on different relay teams dating back to her second year in the program.
“She’s just always able to go out there and run people down from behind like no one else I’ve ever seen,” coach Ryan Dall said. “If she could run an open 400 giving somebody a 20-meter lead and telling her to go catch her, she could be one of the best in the open 400 in the country. She just has that instinct where she sees somebody and she goes and gets them.”
Individually, Treviño didn’t have the year she hoped for, failing to qualify for the nationals in the 200 or 400 — her two primary races. As a senior, she ran her best 400 in 56.22 and her best 200 in 25.15.
Treviño said she couldn’t get over the mental hurdles of solo competition.
“I got it in my head that I couldn’t do it,” Treviño said. “I’ve always worked hard, it’s just believing in myself. I’ve always had difficulty with that.”
Despite her shortcomings as an individual runner, Treviño leaves school having accomplished her primary athletic goal.
She is also studying toward a master’s degree in counseling and guidance, which she hopes to finish in May.
“My thing was always work hard, and then if you work hard, you’ll be the winner,” Treviño said. “It took me a while, but I finally got a national championship.”