NATHANIEL MATA | STAFF WRITER
EDINBURG — When she first started running, Valery Tobias went zigzag. She didn’t know how to follow the pace cart in a cross country meet or set a good line around the track. That was five long years ago, when she was a seventh-grader at IDEA Quest in Edinburg.
Now, she’ll step on the track at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin with an opportunity to do something unprecedented in Valley track history — run to three straight gold medals. Tobias won UIL Class 3A gold in the 800-meter run during her sophomore and junior years with runs of 2 minutes, 15.21 seconds and 2:16.86, respectively.
She’ll have a packed Friday as she competes for gold in three events: high jump, 400 dash and 800 run.
Next year, Tobias will trade in her green and gold for the iconic burnt orange of the University of Texas. The soft-spoken senior admits that the pressure and nerves grew with her accomplishments.
“The process of practice and everything going in is totally different than the previous years,” Tobias said. “I’ve felt more pressure on myself, because it’s my last year, and I really want to perform to the best my abilities. Going into the UT field, I want to make this race my best one.”
Her coach at IDEA Quest, Robbie Cruz, always knew she had potential to run at the next level, even when she was learning the ropes of the sport in middle school. When a coach from Texas called to recruit Tobias, Cruz realized that potential was noticed by “the big times.”
Her time at the college preparatory campus will help her as she pursues a degree in health and society.
“Once I get there as a student — a freshman — I’ll see it different,” Tobias said. “It won’t be more of a racetrack; it will be more of a track where I go to practice. Going in there, I’ll feel more of a sense of, ‘I’ve been here. I know how to do it.’”
She’ll leap in the high jump at 10 a.m. Friday with a seed height of 5 feet, 4 inches. She also qualified for the 400 dash — a race she hasn’t run at the state level since she earned a sixth-place finish as a freshman. The 800 begins at 5:20 p.m., and the 400 gets underway at 6:45 p.m.
“Compared to the 800, it’s totally different. All these years, I’ve thought of the 400 as something just for fun,” Tobias said. “I didn’t expect to set a new PR (personal record) this year for myself. I’m just very happy to see that outcome.”
She ran the 400 in 58.31 seconds and will be seeded better than in the 800, in which she’s a two-time defending champion.
“The way she competes and her heart, it’s her,” Cruz said. “It’s all her in the end. That girl just has that competitive edge. Sometimes, she doesn’t present it right away. Every race, no matter where we’re at, she’s nervous. At the beginning of the race, she has all those nerves. But once that gun goes, that gets left behind her, with everything else.”
IDEA Quest opened the doors to its permanent campus in 2006, and the athletics took some time to pick up speed alongside the rigorous academics. UIL competition began in the 2008-09 school year with humble beginnings and young teams that didn’t include members of a senior class until 2011.
In the last few years, the school has found its way in District 32-3A. The girls basketball team won the first district title and playoff game in school history over the last two seasons, and the girls soccer team won a district title shortly after joining District 32-4A.
Tobias, like the baseball and softball teams at Quest, doesn’t have a practice field or track on campus, so she trains at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
“It shows a lot,” Cruz said about Tobias’s ability to overcome the lack of resources at Quest. “It doesn’t really matter where you’re at, as long as you believe in yourself. It sounds corny, but that’s what it’s all about.”
A gold medal would make Tobias the first RGV athlete to win three consecutive state gold medals in running events. Port Isabel’s Daniella Murchison accomplished the feat as a thrower.
Sabrina Garcia of Brownsville IDEA Frontier will also represent the school district as she competes in the 1,600 and 3,200 after running a pair of PR times at the regional meet.