Feature

	Staff Photo/Chris Moorhead Stephanie Giunta recently won the Region III Junior Olympics title in the javelin and finished third at the USATF Junior National Championship.

The girl just loved baseball.

She played catcher for three years and did quite well.

But as she got older, Stephanie Giunta ran into a problem. The boys hit their growth spurts and left her behind.

She couldn’t possibly serve as an adequate backstop as one of the smallest people on the field.

So Giunta walked away from the diamond. She could’ve switched to softball,, but it didn’t appeal to her. She describes the sport as "too girly."

Instead, she followed in her father Joe’s footsteps and took up track.

It came naturally. She regularly placed in all-comers meets while competing for the Potomac Valley Track Club.

And as a 12-year-old, Giunta won the 14-and-under division of the Remington Turkey Trot and then took the 11- to 13-year-old title at the Potter Holmes Turkey Trot.

The following year, she intensified her training with the Potomac Valley Track Club. The extra work paid off as Giunta brought home medals from AAU regional track meets, Footlocker South Regional cross country races and USA Track and Field competitions.

In her fourth year of competitive running, Giunta has begun begun to emerge as a promising athlete.

Just last month, she won the the 800-meter run at Hershey Track and Field Youth Program’s state meet, clocking a time of 2 minutes, 27 seconds.

Then on July 9, Giunta placed fourth and fifth in the 800- and 1,500-meter runs, respectively, at the USATF Region III Junior Olympics Championship in South Carolina.

"I just love the excitement of being able to run against your peers," Giunta says. "I’ve always had a natural running talent, so I figured I’d give it a try."

What makes her accomplishments even more impressive is the fact that she only logs 11 practice miles a week. Many of her opponents run 50 to 60 miles a week in preparation for races.

"We just wanna keep it fun for her," Joe Giunta says. "She has a certain aptitude for it and she’s really mentally tough and it comes naturally to her. But we don’t want push her too hard so we hold her to only 11 miles a week so she’s not overworked. It’s worked so far."

But Giunta, who this fall will run cross country and track for Liberty High School, doesn’t just stand out as a promising runner.

She also boasts potential as a talented javelin thrower.

Giunta took up the obscure sport roughly a year ago when mother, Dana, began looking for a way to make her a more well-rounded track and field athlete.

"High jump and stuff like that scared me," Mrs. Giunta recalls. "And since she played baseball and had a good arm, we figured she’d be good at javelin."

So the Giuntas purchased a 600-gram javelin for $150. They got tapes and read up on the event, trying to learn as much as possible.

They soon hired Nick Kovaladkides to tutor Stephanie. She meets with the Maryland-based coach once a week.

"We’re all there trying to learn," Mrs. Giunta says. "We have a video camera, so we record her practices. And I sit there and take as many notes as possible."

Soon after they began working with Coach Kovaladkides, the Giuntas learned that throwing the javelin doesn’t have as much to do with upper body strength as they thought.

"The arm’s more of a support or a lever," Stephanie explains. "It more so comes from your hips. You want more of an overall athlete."

Although relatively new to the sport, Giunta has done quite well.

On July 2, she finished third at the USATF Youth Athletics National Championships in Baltimore, registering a throw of 85 feet, 3 inches.

The following week, Giunta won the Region III Junior Olympics title with a throw of 88 feet, 6 inches.

"She’s got great coordination and she’s very coachable," Kovaladkides says. "You point out a mistake and she works on it. She’s a quick study."

By winning the Region III title, Giunta qualified for the National Junior Olympic competition slated for July 27-Aug. 1 in Eugene, Ore. But she’ll pass up on the invitation and compete in Hershey’s North American Finals on Aug. 7.

Giunta could have done both because she earned spots at each of the prestigious events. But she and her parents decided to go with one.

"We don’t want to overextend her," Mrs. Giunta explains. "At the beginning of the year, we sat down and set goals and picked meets that we thought would be good for her. Eugene is just a bit much."

Although they encourage their daughter to improve steadily, Mr. and Mrs. Giunta try to avoid putting too much pressure on her.

They try not to look too far into the future. Stephanie and her parents know that she wants to run and throw javelin in college. But for now they choose to focus on Stephanie’s upcoming high school career.

Giunta won’t be able to throw javelin for LHS because the Virginia High School League doesn’t offer the event. (Only 17 states allow javelin in high school competition.) She’ll continue to throw in all-comers meets with the Potomac Valley Track Club and on the AAU and Junior Olympic levels, however.

But she does expect to contribute to Liberty’s program as a runner.

"It’ll be nice to run and practice with a team," says Giunta, who normally runs either with her father or by herself. "I expect to do well, but I’m setting realistic goals for myself. I don’t expect to blow anybody away my first two years, but I wanna start peaking in my junior year."

But Giunta has consistently clocked times in the 800 that put her ahead of Liberty’s fastest girl.

Giunta also boasts times in 5-kilometer races that would make her the fastest cross country runner at Liberty.

"We don’t really know what her potential is," Mrs. Giunta says. "She still has to do something. She has a good base, she just needs to build on it."

Mr. Giunta doesn’t think it will take long for his daughter to add to that base.

"She’s doing this well and she’s only running 11 miles a week," he says. "Her mileage will definitely increase in high school and I’m expecting when that happens, her times are really gonna come down. It’ll only make her better."