Morgan Hill runner qualifies for Hershey’s Games

Morgan Hill’s Karlie Lema is fast and Aug. 3, she’ll get the chance to prove it to the country.
Lema 10, qualified to run the 100-meter dash in the Hershey’s Track and Field Games after posting the best time in her age group among five areas that comprise Region 2 in the Hershey’s competition.
Because she qualified for the race, she will have her flight and lodging paid for to bring her to Pennsylvania for the weekend. Lema will stay in dorms provided by the games, will get to have fun at a local amusement park and get to tour the iconic Hershey’s Chocolate Factory.
The only catch is she cannot stay with her family, though her mother Annie Bergholz will be staying near by and be with her on the flight over.
Lema and her mom will fly out July 31 and she will compete on Aug. 3.
The nationals only bring eight runners from the eight regions spread across the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada.
This means Lema will get one race to prove she’s the best among the 9 and 10 year olds.
Bergholz said she initially wasn’t sure if Lema would be up for competing, saying Lema isn’t the most comfortable staying apart from her family.
“She said, ‘I’ve got to try to win it,’” Bergholz said.
Lema ran a 14.29, which was the best among all first-place runners from Hawaii, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California. Runners competed in qualifying track meets held in the spring. The best time among all the regional winners advanced to Pennsylvania.
Lema’s time was better than the last seven winners at the Hershey’s Track and Field Games in the 9-10 age group in the 100. If she competed against the boys, most years she would have finished in the top 5 with her time, including besting the winning time in 2007.
She was about eight-tenths of a second off the meet’s record set back in 1980.
Bergholz said Lema learned of the competition from a friend who plays with her on the Orchard Valley Revolution competitive youth soccer team.
Bergholz, herself a college track runner, said she never heard of the Hershey’s meet until this year and heard from friends who attended Penn State just how prestigious the competition is.
The competition boasts participants who have gone on to the collegiate ranks and to the Olympics.
Its biggest spokesmen are former Olypmians Rafer Johnson and Carl Lewis.
The games — now in their 36th year — are for boys and girls ages 9 to 14 who come from across North America.