A Long Road To The Top For Danvers' Dominick
Catalina Dominick stood off to the side of the finish line corral, oblivious to the chilly wind that swept across the grassy badlands of the Wrentham Developmental Center. The Danvers High junior, though, was too excited by her performance in the Div. 4 EMass championship race to let a numbing breeze keep her from savoring the moment.
Dominick's win was a masterpiece. She set the pace from the gun, passing the mile in 5:40 and was alone shortly after. The small pack following her wilted just past the mile. Alone and with an enormous lead, Dominick navigated the 3.1-mile layout to the tune of 17 minutes, 56 seconds. Along with Bishop Feehan's Abbie McNulty, she was the lone girl to break 18 minutes.
Dominick's time was enormous improvement on the 19:30 personal best she ran a year ago. She finished well ahead of Marblehead's Janaya Randall, who was second in 18:33.2.
"My goal was to break 18 minutes," said Dominick, whose breathing was surprisingly controlled, given the effort she put forth in unseasonably cold conditions. "There were a few girls behind me at the mile. I tried to hold my pace and run even."
Next up is and a berth at Saturday's Div. 2 All-State meet at the Gardner Municipal Golf course. Danvers head coach John Norris believes Dominick will be tested by a deep, talented field and she should be right in the mix amongst the leaders.
"There's going to be some great competition there," he said. "As a freshman she hated to lose. She's really progressed as a runner. She used to have all kinds of anxiety before a race because she was afraid she was going to lose. After this stuff happened with her cardiovascular system last year, she's come to a different feeling before a race. She just wants to go out there and do the best she can. If her best is good enough to win, she's very happy. If she feels she ran her best, she's ok with it."
Dominick's outlook on the sport has changed drastically since Oct. 22, the fateful day 24-year-old Danvers High math teacher Colleen Ritzer disappeared after school hours. She was discovered soon after, dead inside a recycling bin in woods adjacent to the school. One of Ritzer's 14-year-old students was arrested for her murder and arraigned two days later. News of the enormously popular teacher's gruesome murder sent shock waves through the halls of Danvers High. Dominick remembers Ritzer as a huge supporter of the cross country teams and her death came as a blow to the entire school, including the harriers.
Norris said the outpouring of support for the Danvers High community was overwhelming. "There was just an outpouring from all the other schools and people in the town," said Norris. "The kids said how unbelievable it was the way people cared about them. Running in the race became less of an individual thing and more we want to do it for Danvers."
And now, races don't feel quite as hard to Northeast Conference champion. "I think of her and it makes me feel grateful," she said. "I think of her before all my races, she was very supportive. We (the team) talked about it a lot. We want to leave everything on the course. We don't want to finish and have any regrets."
Dominick's electrifying victory seemed unlikely seven months earlier.
Dominick was battling a serious medical condition that affected her when she ran, resulting in dehydration and dizziness to the point where she would sometimes pass out. It has only happened in races where she has put extreme stress on her body. The condition first surfaced in Dominick's freshman year during the Northeast Conference meet. She was holding down second behind Peabody legend Catarina Rocha going into woods on the last loop. Dominick began to get dizzy and fell twice before staggering across the finish line and collapsed in fifth place. It happened again her junior year at the Ocean State Invitational. Dominick was once again running well in second place in the varsity race. She began to stagger heading up the hill and passed out once again, dropping out of the race completely. Medication and an increase of potassium and Gatorade in Dominick's diet helped alleviate the problem over the final two weeks of her sophomore cross country season.
"I'd start out fine and as the race went on my legs would start to get heavy and I'd get really pale," Dominick said, and added with a laugh, "I was prescribed an unhealthy diet to get better."
A stress fracture she sustained while training for the indoor season put her on the sidelines for the winter track campaign and Dominick set her sites on getting healthy for the spring season. She spent the winter cross training to keep her aerobic threshold high. Dominick struggled through much of the spring, but she still managed to set a personal best of 11:11 in the 2 mile.
"I didn't start to run well until the last three weeks of the season," she said. "When the spring started I could barely run for 10 minutes. I'm so happy. Even if I didn't win this race I'd be happy because I'm healthy and out running again. I'm very thankful."