SACRAMENTO, Calif. – St. Francis senior cross country runner Gabrielle Dyer will run on Saturday with a chance to extend her career to the CIF State Championships for the second consecutive season.

“I have been running since the sixth grade and after seeing my sister run all four years, it is so weird to me that (my career) is ending,” said Dyer. “It is really sad but it is making me more excited for track and having a better bond with the senior class this year.”

Dyer and her teammates will compete for the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II title at Willow Hills Reservoir Course at 2:15 p.m. The top three times advance to the CIF State Championships in Fresno over Thanksgiving weekend.

“It would mean the world to me,” said Dyer about qualifying for state. “I want to run that last race with my team. I don’t care what the outcome is as long I am with them it is great.”

St. Francis finished third overall last year at the state championships with Dyer part of the top seven. While her running career might be coming to end, she is just beginning her career in coding.

After being inspired by a visit by a computer technician to her house, she has developed a love for the subject.

“My whole life I have always been into computers,” said Dyer. “One day a technician came to my house and saw me work on something. He told me I would be really good.”

She started coding in the eighth grade and earned an internship at Konicom, Inc., a Sacramento-based web-design company. She worked at the company for two summers before her freshman and sophomore years.

She has continued to work on her skills at St. Francis. She took Computer Science as a sophomore, which taught her the basics of animation and graphic design.

“When you make apps you need to know what your design looks like,” said Dyer, who placed 32nd overall at the subsections race at Frogtown.

As a junior, she took the St. Francis AP Computer Science taught by Stan Domen. She also has been a liliPad intern during her 10th and 12th grade years.

“Mr. Domen gave me life lessons on how to survive in the industry,” said Dyer, who is proficient in html, Java and Swift.  “He made me a better coder.”

Dyer, who is from Sacramento and the fourth Dyer to attend St. Francis (Ashley Andrews ’98, Noelle ’06, Camille ’12, Gabrielle ’16), has even developed her first app that has been published and made available universally. Working with Jesuit student Maverick Kuhn, the two created an App for Hella Dad!, a website dedicated to reviews of music, pop culture, sports, and food.  They created a word press streaming app (taking a website and putting it into an app) and it was launched in the App store in August.

“It was a great accomplishment,” said Dyer. “My friend and I worked day and night. I would come home on summer nights and code until 1 a.m. and then we would go over the designs and work on problems.”

Dyer, who plans to study computer science, is now working with Santa Clara University and the Bronco Athletic department to create an app to promote their program. The app will enable SCU students to earn points for attending athletic events to redeem for athletic gear.  It will incentivize students to attend athletic events. Her sister, Camille Dyer ‘12, currently attends SCU and works in the Athletic Department and asked her for help with the project.

“I want to be a computer science or engineering major,” said Dyer of her college plans. “I want to keep working in the field and getting better at it.”

She will do the same with her teammates on Saturday.

The junior varsity girls race at 12:20 p.m. and frosh/soph girls division 1 and 2 at 3:10 p.m. The awards ceremony will be held at 4 p.m. for the Division II races.