Golden Bear freshman and national record holder looks to lead Cal at Pac-12 Championships.
Courtesy: Cal Athletics
Courtesy: Cal Athletics
Freshman Bethan Knights hopes to lead the Golden Bears as the squad seeks its first Pac-12 title Friday at the conference Championship meet in Oakland. Knights headed to Berkeley after a stellar high school season that saw her break a national record in the two-mile. The Irvine, California, native led Cal in her debut race, placing 15th at the Roy Griak Invitational with a mark of 21:37.7. She followed up with a standout fifth-place finish at the prestigious Pre-Nationals (20:51.3) meet to earn Cal’s top performer.
Knights and the Golden Bears head to Oakland on Friday to host this year’s Pac-12 Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Championships at the Metropolitan Golf Links. As the rookie runner prepares, CalBears.com caught up with Knights to get her take on her first semester at Cal and the conference championships.
CalBears.com: How are you feeling about the upcoming Pac-12 Cross Country Championships?
Bethan Knights: Being a freshman and being able to host is so exciting. It is going to be a great experience, because we are going to have loads of fans out there. Since the beginning of the year, I have been telling people about this race. With cross country we are usually traveling really far, so it has been really exciting to get our fans involved in the championships.
CB: Is anyone special coming to watch you race?
BK: My mom is coming up and I am so excited for her to get to watch me race. My family lives in southern California, so they would watch me race in high school. Now they can only watch me on the live feeds, so it will be nice to have them come up for this race. This is the first college meet that they get to watch me race in.
CB: What has your freshman experience been like?
BK: I came off a really great high school season, but going to college you never really know how you will perform. I didn’t really have any expectations coming into the season, I just really wanted to go out and have a good time, see what I could do and hopefully do some really great things. The past two races have gone really well and it is just a reflection of hard training and my experiences at Cal.
CB: What was it like breaking a high school national record?
BK: It was at the Brooks PR meet in the two mile. It was my last high school race, a few weeks after the state meet, in Seattle. It was an incredible experience. I got to race against a few of my Cal teammates and it was one of the first times I had met some of them. It was an unreal high and is not something I have come down from. It was such a good way to end high school. I was already so excited to go to Cal and I felt that I had even more prove.
CB: With All-American Kelsey Santisteban redshirting the season, how have you taken more of a leadership position on the squad?
BK: It was disappointing that Kelsey wasn’t going to be running this season, because I was so excited to run with her. It gave me the opportunity to push myself in training and become part of this team and become more of a leader than I would have otherwise. I learned a lot from myself this season, but I think next year is going to be really great. I will have had more experience and Kelsey will be back. Everyone is improving and I feel like we can do something really great.
CB: What are your expectations for this weekend?
BK: I have been racing hard and training hard, so it would be great to have a big finish at Pac-12s. There are a ton of really great women in the field, so I want to be able to stick with some of the ones that I know and see what I can do in the last 2k, which is what I did at Pre-Nationals. For the team, we are hosting the course and we will have a lot of fans out, so it would be great to have a good showing and place high. We want to show that Cal is on the rise.
CB: Where did you grow up?
BK: I was born in Bristol, England, which is a big city close to London. I moved over to southern California when I was eight and we loved California, so we stayed here. I try to go back and visit family – my entire family is over there. They are so supportive. After every race, they wish me good luck. It’s so nice to have that fan base over there.
CB: What is something that Cal fans should know about Bethan Knights?
BK: I love every minute of being at Cal. Every time I go out there and race, I want to do well for my team and the fans. I feel like I have a huge family here at Cal already. I lived in Irvine, and I was ready to get out after high school. I thought I wanted to go somewhere far like New York or Michigan. Berkeley is a whole other world, and is completely different than southern California. I love this atmosphere up here and really enjoy it here.
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