VISTA —— Andrea Jacobs' cross country season started with success. She's hoping it ends that way as well.

The Vista High runner won the girls junior-senior race of the 2005 Vaquero Stampede on Saturday morning, crossing the finish line 18 seconds before her closest competitor.

Jacobs was happy with her race and the positive outcome, but neither were cause for overt celebration that would draw attention to her efforts.

Instead, in the interests of good sportsmanship, Jacobs simply shook each competitor's hand after they crossed the finish line.

As Jacobs worked through the line of finishers, track officials followed. They took names and places for the subsequent medal distribution. Jacobs was congratulating the 14th-place finisher while the officials passed by. They didn't take down the girl's information, and therefore didn't have a medal for her.

The officials seemed content to allow the error to go unchanged, but Jacobs would have nothing of it.

"I would feel bad if that happened to me," said Jacobs, who to this day doesn't know the 14th-place finisher's name. "I knew that girl worked hard to earn a medal, and it didn't seem right that she didn't get one."

Jacobs made sure that she did. The judges wouldn't budge on their stance, so Jacobs gave up her own hardware to reward the girl's efforts. She parted with her own hard-earned gold medal without so much as a second thought.

"I was absolutely blown away by her generosity at the time, but I can't say that I'm surprised by it," Vista coach Ed Matheus said. "That's just something that Andrea would do."

She did it out of the kindness of her heart, but the reality is that there will be many more gold medals where that one came from.

Jacobs is one of the area's top returning runners heading into the 2005 season. The junior will likely qualify for her third straight CIF state meet this year and is among the favorites to win a Division I title in San Diego County.

While Jacobs could come away with many individual accolades this season, all she cares about is her team's success.

"I've been to state before, but I want to bring the whole group this year," she said. "It's such a fun experience and I'd love to share it with my teammates."

And Jacobs will push herself to the limit just to make that happen —— she always has, and always will.

During Jacobs' freshman track season, when Vista was in the Palomar League, she tried to win three titles in the league finals to help her team earn points. She won the 800 and 1,600 meters and was leading the 3,200 before she collapsed down the stretch.

She's known for having an insatiable competitive drive, one that normally supersedes the physical toll such extreme efforts can take on the body.

"I like to push myself, to see just how far I can go," Jacobs said. "It hurts when I go that hard, but the pain never lasts that long. It really doesn't matter what place I get.

"If I ran a great race and tried my best, that will make me happy for the rest of the day."

There isn't a medal that can make her feel like that.

Contact staff writer Scott Bair at (760) 739-6642 or sbair@nctimes.com.