All-Delco Girls Track and Field: Competitive fire gets Forbes back on track

NETHER PROVIDENCE — Grace Forbes was faced with a dilemma after her freshman soccer season ended.

Would she try out for the ninth-grade basketball team, or run indoor track? It wasn’t an easy decision. There were pros and cons on both sides.

Forbes said she had a bad case of shin splints in the eighth grade and worried that track would only make the problem worse. Even though she came from a running family, she was not as confident about her skills as a runner at that time.

In the end, Forbes chose track. Three years later, she’s very glad she did.

At the end of her Strath Haven career, Forbes is a two-time Daily Times Athlete of the Year in girls track, a three-time All-Delco in the sport and the owner of a pair of state gold medals, one in the 800-meter run and one in the 4 x 800 relay, plus two school records.

That’s something that far exceeded her expectations.

“As a little kid, I was always the bad one to be perfectly honest,” said Forbes, who also was the girls Runner of the Year in cross country. “My younger sister, Maggie, beat my personal record in the 800 when she was in fourth grade and I was in sixth grade the first time she ever tried it so I always was the worst and I just tried to get better, but I never envisioned that it would happen like this.”

Joining Forbes on the All-Delco team are Strath Haven teammates Dana Hubbell and Olivia Malley; Upper Darby’s Siani Barnes, Kayla Thorpe and Dominique Timmons; Haverford’s Olivia Boyce; Riley Beebe of Garnet Valley; Elicia Moore and Nevaeh Davis of Penn Wood; Jiya Clayton from Chester; Ridley’s Brianna Foster and Meghan Lynch; Cardinal O’Hara’s Christine Mancini; Keara Seasholtz from Radnor and Jessica Schneider of Notre Dame.

Forbes, Hubbell, Barnes, Beebe, Lynch, Moore, Mancini, Seasholtz and Schneider are repeat selections. Moore is a four-time All-Delco. Mancini earned first-team honors as a sophomore. The All-Delco team was selected by the Daily Times staff after consultation with county coaches.

Forbes did not appear to be headed for a memorable outdoor season as the indoor campaign came to a close. She was diagnosed with an iron deficiency during the indoor season and it took a while to get the problem under control. The ailment, though, could not extinguish her fierce competitive fire.

“I don’t like to lose,” Forbes said. “I think I get it from my family. This is bad, but I’ve always been competitive, even with little things. Doing the dishes, who can do it faster? Stuff like that. I just don’t like to lose.”

READ: All-Delco Girls Track and Field: Upper Darby’s Thorpe was a throwing machine

Forbes rarely tasted defeat as a senior. She won every 800-meter race she entered, including the Delco and District 1 Class 3A championships for the second year in a row, and the PIAA title for the first time in her career. She also won every 1,600- and 3,200-meter race she ran for the Panthers.

She was just as successful in relay events. She anchored the Panthers to their first states gold medal in the 4 x 800 after seven second-place finishes in the 10 previous years. She also was on the 4 x 400-meter relay that took third in Shippensburg. At the Penn Relays, Forbes anchored the team of Maggie Forbes, Malley and Abby Loiselle to a county record in the DMR (11:51.26).

Her winning time of 2:08.43 in the 800 at the Central League championships set the school record was the third-best by a county runner since 2000. Her 4:45.27 in the 1,600 at the Delco Champs also was a school mark and the best by a county runner in the last 20 years.

Forbes won four medals at the District 1 championships (800, 1,600, 4 x 400 and 4 x 800), a performance that impressed former Penn Wood and Strath Haven coach Bob Jesson, who knows a little something about what it takes to accomplish that feat. He was the coach at Penn Wood when Leroy Burrell, the Daily Times Athlete of the Millennium, won four individual gold medals at the 1985 PIAA championships.

“This was harder,” Jesson said. “It’s distance. Sprinters can run four events … This is unbelievable.”

Forbes followed that up with three medals at the state meet.

“I’m happy with how far I’ve come, especially with the two state championships,” said Forbes, who also was the Runner of the Year in girls cross country. “I’m really proud of that.”

READ: The full All-Delco Track and Field teams

Through it all, Forbes maintained her perspective. Track is important and one of the reasons she will join her older sister Maddie at Rice University in Houston, but it’s not what defines her. Forbes is as serious in the classroom as she is on the track. She wants to be an eye surgeon like her father, Brian, a pediatric ophthalmologist with Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

She also likes to cook and most of all, spend time with her family.

“For me, track is just one part of life,” Forbes said. “I like to have fun. I like to go to school. My siblings are a huge part of my life. We always play basketball and do other things together. I wasn’t going to jeopardize my high school experience just for running. But one of the things I like about track, and what I’ve learned from track, is that in order to do well, you have to have fun and I’ve had fun.”