Elena Bruckner's mother has competed in Iron Mans. Her father rides bikes. Her older sister hurdles, and her younger sister dances competitively and has ran a half marathon.

"I guess I would say all of us in our family are similar," said Bruckner's mother, Sabrina. "But she's kind of over the top. She's all in."

The Valley Christian standout won Central Coast Section championships last season in the shot put and discus. This season, the junior has elevated her throwing to a whole different level.

Bruckner enters the CCS Top 8 meet Friday at San Jose City College with the state's top mark in the shot put (49 feet, 10 inches) and second-best mark in the discus (153-10).

She is also undefeated on the season, having just experienced the rarefied air of winning two invitational divisions at the Arcadia Invitational, one of the nation's premier high school track and field competitions.

"It was pretty surreal," Bruckner said.

But given the drive she has shown from a very early age, not all that surprising.

"She fought tooth and nail for it," said Arpedge Rolle, Valley Christian's throws coach.

Determined to win

Competitive juices burn at varying degrees. For Bruckner, they rage like an untamed inferno.

Take last weekend's Arcadia meet. Bruckner's teammate, Ronna Stone, an accomplished thrower herself, had taken the lead in the discus with a sensational toss, 153-8.

The Oregon-bound thrower was in line to win a competition that included Bruckner and the national leader, Kendall Mader of Newbury Park, who fouled out but has thrown 164-4 this season. But Rolle knew Bruckner wasn't done.

"Elena is the kind of person to where she's not going to go home in second," he said this week. "She's going to fight for it. That's how she got to where she is now."

In the end, both throwers made Rolle proud. In their talk the night before the meet, he reminded them to believe in themselves. On the drive to the track the next morning, he stressed that they put the beliefs into practice.

"Last night we talked about the faith," Rolle said to them. "Now I am talking about the work. You have to do what we have been practicing hard to do.

"And they did it. What Elena did is spectacular. You don't really see that often, at a level like that, to compete like that and win both. Her teammate threw 153-8. She threw 153-10. She won by two inches."

Bruckner, who won the shot put at Arcadia in 48-5, and Stone have a friendly competition. They work out together, during the season and in the offseason, and push each other to improve. The two trail only Mader in the state's discus rankings. In the shot put, Bruckner is first in the state and Stone (42-113/4) is sixth.

"It's good competition in practice," Stone said, "and at meets it's always good to have someone that yeah, you're going against them, but is also supporting you."

Lofty goal

When Bruckner first picked up a shot put and discus as a fifth grader in southern Wisconsin, she had already shown a determination to succeed. She scaled rock walls with the best of them.

"I actually took fifth at nationals when I was in fourth grade," she said.

She also competed in gymnastics and volleyball, trying to find the one sport that might fulfill a goal she wrote on a poster, a goal to one day be an Olympian.

"Ever since I knew what the Olympics were, I have to go," said Bruckner, who also excels in the classroom. "That is my goal in life. I never knew what I wanted to go for. For a while, it was gymnastics because I was a huge gymnast. Then there were rumors of rock climbing being a part of that, and I was a competitive rock climber. Pretty much whatever sport I have done at the time, I have been like, 'This could be it. This could be my ticket to the Olympics.'"

Not quite 5-foot-8, Bruckner concluded that volleyball would not be the ticket, given that most elite-level hitters are taller than 5-8.

Still, when the family moved to San Jose before her freshman year, she thought volleyball would be the sport she'd do in college. She plays on Valley Christian's varsity team, a team that reached a Northern California regional final in the fall.

On the track, Bruckner wasn't even exclusively a thrower when she got to Valley Christian.

"In middle school, my No. 1 event was high jump," she said.

Eventually, Rolle convinced her to narrow her track choices.

"He saw a lot more in me than I ever thought I would be capable of," Bruckner said.

In the middle of last season, as Bruckner's results improved, she decided that track would be her sport in college. She said UCLA and Washington -- "in no particular order" -- top her list of potential destinations.

"I definitely want to go to school for track and field and throw," she said. "Having that mindset from the start of the year has helped me to focus in and say, 'This is what I am going to be doing.'"