MIDDLETOWN — Taylor Tiraterra accepted the Middletown High School cross country coaching job fully aware that the COVID-19 pandemic was going to play havoc with the Mustangs’ fall 2020 season.
It did, which is why the Mustangs didn’t have that season until the late winter of 2021. However, during a year when almost nothing went as planned, the one thing that didn’t change was Middletown’s continued dominance in the small-school ranks. Although there was no official Coastal Mountain Conference winner recognized during a coronavirus-shortened campaign that ran from late February to mid-April, the defending CMC-champion Middletown varsity boys team once again went undefeated.
For his part in keeping Middletown’s boys squad on top during the year of COVID, Tiraterra has been named the Record-Bee’s Coach of the Year in boys sports for the 2020-21 high school sports season.
Tough assignment
The Middletown High School history teacher, a former runner at Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park but new to the coaching ranks, Tiraterra applied for and received the Middletown coaching job when Anna Schneider stepped down following the 2019 season. Schneider did stay on as an assistant this season and Tiraterra said she was a valuable asset during his rookie year.
“Annie was a superb assistant,” Tiraterra said. “She taught me all the ropes about coaching.”
Veterans help
Inheriting talent helps too and the cupboard certainly wasn’t bare for the first-year coach, who took over a boys team that included several veterans, not the least of which were seniors Isaac Rascon, Isaiah Diaz and Filemon Sanchez as well as junior Xander Romero. The girls squad was harder hit by graduation and other factors following the 2019 campaign, but senior Erica Kinsel and sophomores Nicole Pyzer and Maya Leonard gave the team a solid core to build around.
“Absolutely,” Tiraterra said of his good fortune to join the Middletown program with all of those veteran runners available to him. “I couldn’t have asked for a better team. “I already had a lot veterans and I took what they did and added my own touches. Having those veterans like Isaac led the team through the year.”
False starts
Keeping all of that talent motivated and focused with so many false starts to the season was anything but routine. While cross country normally opens in August, the Mustangs were pushed back four months to begin with, and an expected early December start date also went by the wayside because of the state’s COVID-19 safety guidelines.
“It was hard not to be disappointed at times,” Tiraterra said. “It was not an easy year for teachers, coaches or students. There was a point in January and early February where it seemed like the kids might move directly into track (and skip cross country), but out administrators were adamant that there be a season after all the hard work the runners had put in. I’m grateful to them for that.”
Success at last
It finally happened on Feb. 24 when the first cross country race of the season took place at Six Sigma Ranch and Winery near Lower Lake. It was the first sanctioned high school athletic event of any type in Lake County since mid-March of 2020.
“When we had that first meet and it ran smoothly, it made all the (COVID) chaos worth it,” Tiraterra said. “We were finally running.”
The Mustangs dominated the team action that day and continued to do so for the next seven weeks, culminating with the season finale April 14 at Clear Lake State Park.
Looking ahead
Now that the 2020-21 school year is behind him, Tiraterra is hoping for s normal 2021 fall season, and the Mustangs will be back at practice in less than a month, a quick turnaround following the late winter/early spring season. They’ve already got their team captains in place – Javier Perez for the boys and Nicole Pyzer for the girls – and are just starting to hold voluntary workouts.
“We’ve got a great community, a great school and some good runners,” Tiraterra said. “I think we’re going to keep the (winning) momentum going.”
