Elissa Mann has spent two years trying to get past the disappointment.
Mann was just a year removed from Monarch High when she found herself competing at the NCAA West track and field preliminaries for the Colorado Buffaloes in 2016. It had been a solid rookie season for Mann, a specialist in the 800-meter run, and she entered the NCAA preliminaries on the heels of a fifth-place finish at the Pac-12 championships with a time of 2 minutes, 5.28 seconds — a personal best at the time.
She wasn't quite able to repeat that mark at the NCAA preliminaries, a shortcoming that remains somewhat haunting.