Shamrock'n Half Marathon F15-18: Fowler Leads a Sacramento Sweep of the Podium

• Lily Fowler, 16, wins the F15-18 age group in 1:40:59 (7:42/mi), finishing 52nd among all women.
• Samantha Brink closes hard: her Mile 11→Finish split ranked 37th among women — the strongest closing split in the age group — lifting her from 112th to 66th among women en route to 2nd place in 1:43:13.
• Madison Rose and Jada Godsey finished 5th and 6th separated by just 0.03 seconds — both credited with 1:56:00 — with Rose edging ahead by a sliver the clock barely captured.
• Alexia and Abigail Niculai of Orangevale crossed in 2:39:27, just 0.56 seconds apart, finishing 17th and 18th in the age group.

Lily Fowler of Sacramento took the F15-18 title on a clear, breezy March morning in West Sacramento, covering 13.1 miles at a 7:42/mi clip to finish in 1:40:59 — more than two minutes clear of the field. She moved steadily through the women's race, climbing from 65th among women at the first checkpoint to 52nd by the finish, a controlled and confident performance from start to line.

Behind her, Samantha Brink of Elk Grove put together one of the more impressive closing efforts of the day. She entered the final stretch ranked 77th among women, then unleashed the 37th-fastest women's split from Mile 11 to the finish — the best closing kick in the entire age group — to land 2nd in 1:43:13 at 7:52/mi. That's a catch-up story: Brink ran the closing miles considerably faster than anyone else in the F15-18 field, making up meaningful ground even if the gap to Fowler was already set. Isabella Waters of Stockton rounded out the podium in 1:53:28 (8:39/mi), finishing 3rd.

The race's most dramatic moment came at the very back of the top six. Madison Rose and Jada Godsey, both 17 and 18 from Elk Grove and Sacramento respectively, crossed in what the clock recorded as 1:56:00 — but timing finer than the display separated them: Rose took 5th by 0.03 seconds over Godsey in 6th. A similar near-mirror moment played out further back, where Alexia and Abigail Niculai from Orangevale finished 17th and 18th just 0.56 seconds apart at 2:39:27.