Alonso's Quatasia Fantroy: Patch Athlete of the Week

Alonso's Quatasia Fantroy has done some amazing things in her short prep career. She stands to do much more with a May 7th state final on the horizon and two more years of athletic eligibility. 

Quatasia is no stranger to the track. She began as a five-year-old in California, participating with an AAU team in the 100m. Her older brother Trez was and still is a track athlete at Alonso and no doubt served as someone she wanted to catch up to, literally.

She moved to Tampa when she was 11 and started running at Farnell Middle School where she continued running the 100m and started trying the long jump and relay races. 

Coaches began to notice things about Quatasia's running as her limbs stretched out and her coordination tried to keep up. She did not blast out of the blocks in the 100m, which is tantamount for being tops in the distance. What they also noticed was that she got stronger as the race went on.

They switched her over to the 200m distance and she excelled and continues to excel at that distance.

"I've always had really good strides; something my coaches noticed early," Fantroy said. 

As conditioning, as well as mental and physical maturity began to set in, Fantroy and her coaches realized that "kick" or "stride" could translate to the 400m. 

And it has.

Quatasia currently holds the school record in 400m with a time of 1:00.63 minutes. That record went down this past Wednesday at the 2011 regional finals. She is going to states in the 400m on Saturday, May 7th in Winter Park.

Additionally, she was the school record-holder in long jump at 16 feet 11 inches. She broke her own record at regionals on April 27th with a jump of 17 feet 2 inches.

And she has no plans for slowing down.

"I don't take losing very well," she said.