North Carolina-based trio of Charlotte Bell, Stella Kermes and Justine Preisano Have Been Part Of Three National High School Indoor Records

By Keenan Gray of DyeStat

Ian Terpin photo

Justine Preisano and Charlotte Bell were just getting a taste of what it's like to race at Hayward Field in 2021 when they competed at The Outdoor Nationals Presented by Nike.

With New Balance Nationals Outdoor cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, a select group of athletes, which included Preisano and Bell, represented North Carolina’s Cuthbertson High in Eugene, Ore. at the only high school national championship meet that summer.

“I just remember going there, I was super excited,” Preisano said. “I was definitely nervous because amazing things have happened there.”

Their teammate, Stella Kermes, was back home, watching her teammates compete from afar. 

“I was not fast enough to qualify my freshman year for that race,” Kermes said. “I remember me and my mom tuning in, and we were like, ‘Oh my gosh, I can’t believe they’re at this national race.’”

Three years hence, all three seniors on the Cuthbertson team are part of the group heading west to Eugene for this year’s Oregon Relays presented by AthleticNET. Cuthbertson is adding some east coast flavor to Oregon Relays and sending 27 athletes to the meet.

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Cuthbertson will be among the many schools in contention for this year’s Co-Ed championship title. Defending champion Long Beach Wilson CA, which dominated the field with last year with 139 points, is also coming back.

The Cavaliers have dominated the North Carolina track and field scene over the last decade, with the girls team capturing seven consecutive indoor titles and the boys winning two of the last three.

“It’s awesome for the first time we are doing this Co-ed championship and have everybody come together to fight for one team title,” Cuthbertson head coach Dustin Allen said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Much has happened for Kermes, Bell and Preisano since their freshman year that has brought a national spotlight to Cuthbertson.

Three indoor national records in distance relay races have been set by Cuthbertson High over the last year, with the latest two coming in March at New Balance Nationals Indoor where the group broke records in the 4xMile and distance medley relay.

“For us to have accomplished what we've accomplished is truly amazing,” Allen said. “The hard work that they put in, and everything on our daily basis is astonishing and amazing to watch.”

For Kermes, Bell and Preisano, a spark ignited during their sophomore seasons in 2022.

Racing at an indoor meet at the JDL Track in Winston-Salem, N.C., all three girls broke five minutes for the mile for the first time in the same race. 

“None of us really saw it coming or predicted it,” Bell said. “I remember my coach saying his goal was to have a girl on the team run under five minutes in the mile. Now, collectively, we’ve all done that and then some.”

The trio, along with Preisano’s older sister, Alyssa, carried that momentum with them throughout the season up to Nike Indoor Nationals at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex in New York. Together, they captured their first national title, winning the 4x800 relay in 8 minutes, 59.85 seconds.

A year later, the group shifted to New Balance Nationals Indoor in Boston at the newly constructed The TRACK at New Balance. Along with competing in the 4x800 relay, the group lined up for both the 4xMile and DMR races.

“We had some pretty big goals,” Kermes said. “With Alyssa leaving the next year, this could be the fastest group that we’ll have at Cuthbertson, so we really wanted to take advantage of that year. We just wanted to compete for national titles and see what were able to do with that group and how far we could go.”

In the DMR, the team competing as Carolina Cavaliers ran 11:35.51 to capture the first national title of the meet. 

The next day, they fell second to Flower Mound High of Texas in the 4xMile, by just five seconds. 

“After that race, we tried to regroup and tried to really compose ourselves,” Kermes said. “We couldn’t get in our heads; we have one more race.”

Come Sunday on the final day of the meet, the group was ready to go, but had a tall order ahead with Union Catholic of New Jersey stepping on the track with them.

Unlike their first race, winning a second national title of the meet required a national record effort.

Behind a 2:08.47 anchor leg from Bell to hold off Union Catholic’s Kaleigh Gunsiorowski right at the line, Cuthbertson clocked 8:48.02, besting Pioneer of Ann Arbor High’s national record time of 8:51.93 from the 2022 New Balance meet.

“Everything kind of fell into place and you could kind of see it in the reactions afterwards,” Allen said. “There were tears of joy everywhere. Probably one of the best moments in their running careers to that time.”

Later that year at New Balance Nationals Outdoor at Franklin Field in Philadelphia, the Cavaliers won the DMR and the 4xMile, increasing their national titles haul to five within the last two years.

Then came an unexpected change.

In addition to Alyssa Preisano graduating and heading to Wake Forest in the fall, Kirk Walsh, the distance coach at Cuthbertson, who had coached the relay standouts since middle school, announced his retirement at the end of the 2023 outdoor season.

“It was definitely a really big shock,” Kermes said. “We knew he had planned to retire, but (thought) his plan was to wait until our class graduated.”

For the first time in their running careers, a new coach was going to guide them. 

“I think at the beginning it was a tough adjustment,” Allen said. “You’ve been with someone for six years and now someone else is coming in.”

As the fall approached, Allen brought in Mark Vilardo as the new cross country and distance coach.

The fall was beset by an assortment of additional challenges.

Kermes, who finished 31st at Nike Cross Nationals in 2022, suffered a stress fracture in her lower leg, ending her senior cross country season in October. 

A month later, Cuthbertson failed to qualify for NXN for a second consecutive year out of Nike Cross Regional Southeast with a seventh-place team finish. Bell was the team's top individual in 30th place.

“I know we talked about it being different, like, turn it around and come back stronger,” Bell said. “For whatever reason, we just struggled a little and Stella also got a stress fracture about halfway through the season. That really limited our ability to perform as well as we could have.”

The focus shifted to the indoor season. Kermes began her rehab in December and was slowly coming back, while Bell and Preisano continued to lead Cuthbertson in pursuit of another indoor state team title.

Kermes was cleared to compete by January, just in time to get ready to compete at nationals in March. By then, Allen could tell that the girls had adjusted to Vilardo's training and were in a good place. 

“I think Coach Vilardo has done an amazing job of talking things through and throwing some ideas together and has made things work,” Allen said. “The girls have done a good job of buying in, listening and reflecting.”

After leading Cuthbertson to another North Carolina indoor state team title, the trio set off to Boston for nationals. The mindset, however, was different from the year before.

“Going into nationals, we had such a different mentality than last year,” Bell said. “I think last year we were too focused on the records that we put a lot of stress on ourselves. We talked about them a little, but mainly we just wanted to perform to the best of our ability.”

To replace Alyssa Preisano from the year before the team turned to freshman Josie Schihl on the 4xMile and junior Tatiana Blake on the DMR. 

On the first day of nationals, Schihl, Kermes, Preisano and Bell lined up in the 4xMile with Texas’ Flower Mound once again, featuring Samantha Humphries on the anchor leg.

Through three legs of the race, Flower Mound and Cuthbertson were neck-and-neck. Bell got the baton first for Cuthbertson ahead of Humphries and Flower Mound on the final exchange.

As the two went through the first few laps, the gap began to open for Bell to emerge and pull away. Heading into the final turn, Bell was all alone. 

She crossed the finish line. The clock read: 19:22.70. 

The national record was smashed by 15 seconds.

Tears of joy began forming and a familiar happiness engulfed the group once again.

“The fact that we broke the record by that much was just crazy,” Preisano said. “It was everything that we were hoping for. The fact we actually did it, it was just such an exciting race.”

That was just the start.

Two days later, another national record fell when Carolina Cavaliers ran a collective time of 11:17.50 to win the DMR.

“After that 4xMile, we were over the moon with that race, but we had to rein it in because we still had a couple of more races,” Kermes said. “We knew there were going to be a lot of eyes on us, but I think we did well with not letting that pressure get to us.”

Within a span of a year, Kermes, Bell and Preisano have stood together to accomplish what they set out to do, despite some roadblocks.

“I didn’t know if we were going to be as good as we were last season,” Preisano said. “Just seeing everyone work hard in practice, I think in the back of my mind I was like, ‘Okay, we can do this. We got it.’”

The same resilient mindset will be on display in Oregon this weekend when Cuthbertson competes in the girls DMR and mile championship races in pursuit of leading their team to the Co-Ed team championship.

“We don’t tell the girls we’re going to Oregon to break the national record,” Allen said. “We’re just going to Oregon to have a great time and run as good as we can.”