Do not get Naiaja Sizemore started because she is unstoppable once she gets going. The soon-to-be senior at Vanden High proved that at the state championships by winning the 100- and 200-meter races to become the fastest girl in California. And it also applies to engaging her in a conversation.

This 17-year-old can talk. Sizemore used her gift of gab to make friends after enrolling at Vanden in 2023. Her family spent the previous four years in Okinawa because her father Sean, a lieutenant colonel, was stationed at Kadena Air Force Base. Sizemore spent her freshman year at Kubasaki High and took advantage of that time to become fluent in Japanese – as if a talkative teen needs a second language.

Kubasaki is where she decided to try her luck at running track for no other reason than she had always been faster than her classmates. Sizemore was fast enough in 2023 to set a Northwest Pacific record in the 100 at 11.72 seconds. That earned her a feature story in the Stars and Stripes newspaper.

No introductions were necessary in 2024 when Sizemore joined Vanden’s track team. Her great aunt, Allison Johnson, is the girls basketball coach at Vanden and had spread the word on campus that a record-setting sprinter was on the way. Even with that, Sizemore figured there would be skeptics.

“I heard some whispers that I wouldn’t perform quite as well when I got to America,” Sizemore recalled.  “A lot of the kids already knew who I was when I got here, especially on the track team. A lot of them were like, ‘You ran that 11.72 as a freshman?’ And I was like, “That would be me.’”

Any questions about Sizemore’s speed were answered at the 2024 Sac-Joaquin Section Masters meet. She finished second in the 100 (11.65) and third in the 200 (24.58). Although she qualified in both races for the state championships, a lingering illness spoiled her trip to Buchanan High in Clovis.

Sizemore trimmed her 200 time to 24.55 in the state preliminaries, but that was not enough to make the nine-runner final. She fell short of her Masters time in the 100 by finishing 17th at 11.84. Crying was her only relief after frustration and disappointment joined forces to send her home.

“I would clock 11.6 (in the 100) pretty consistently, but I was just miserably sick,” Sizemore said. “I kept on catching a cold. I had the flu. I caught like everything under the sun last year. Still, going there and not making a final event was a bummer. I’m used to performing to the best of my ability.”

Her best refused to be denied this spring. Sizemore became the fastest girl in section history with a 100 time of 11.43 in the Masters preliminaries. She did not celebrate after winning the final in 11.65 because she was too busy picking apart her slow start and “my worst reaction time of all season.” 

Making history in the 100 did not cross Sizemore’s mind because she had no idea what the record was. Even if she did, her approach for the preliminaries would have been the same because “my whole goal is try to just have a good start and then push whatever I have to just to get through.”

Briyanna Word of St, Mary’s and Sizemore were the fastest qualifiers in the 200 at 24.07 and 24.16, respectively, but Word could not match her time in the final. Sizemore won in 23.61 despite having one of her shoes come untied in the turn and navigating the staggered start from the seventh lane.

Sizemore’s disappointment from the 2024 state meet dissipated May 31 when she won the 100 and 200 with personal records of 11.33 and 23.18, respectively. Time is of the essence in track, but Sizemore would rather count medals than seconds because “I don’t run for time. I run to win.”

And when she is not running, she is talking. “I love talking because it gets me out there,” Sizemore said. “It’s crazy to think that I only got here a year and a half ago and to see the amount of friends I have now. That’s awesome.”