NEDERLAND — Like many athletic 9-year-olds, Travis Gibson dreamed of one day running in the world’s biggest athletic stage.

So, he told his parents he wanted to compete in the Summer Olympics after watching the 2012 spectacle that took place in London.

One little dream got the ball rolling. Now, almost 13, Travis and his two siblings, 10-year-old Mary Kathryn and 7-year-old Peter, have made competitive running a ritual.

“I ran in high school and college and I was familiar with that, and then I kind of did some things with [Travis],” their father and coach, Rick Gibson said. “We ran into [local club coach] Cyrus Jacobs out here and he invited us to come and run with him.”

The Gibsons, of Nederland, visited Staten Island, New York, last weekend for the USA Track and Field Hershey Youth Indoor Championships. Mary Kathryn made a strong showing in the Big Apple, finishing second in the girls 9- and 10-year-old 1,500 meters and nearly setting a meet record with a time of 5 minutes, 13.26 seconds.

The winner, Alissa Graham, won the race in 5:11.59, which was 0.05 second shy of the record set by Lauryn Heskin three years ago.

“I passed her with about 600 meters to go, which was three laps around the track,” Mary Kathryn said. “When we had about 15 meters to go, she passed me right back up and I was so close to beating her.”

Mary Kathryn was 10 seconds ahead of third-place Leilani Gibson (no relation) in the race. She also came in fourth in the 800 meters at 2:39.44. Alissa, who won in 2:32.74, broke Lauryn’s record in that race by almost 2 seconds.

Despite the stunning finish, Mary Kathryn was still happy about how the race went.

“After the race, you could hear the announcers. They basically announced my name the whole race, and I came across the finish line, and they say, ‘And Graham on the fence and Gibson on the track,’ because I was just laying there.”

Travis came in 16^th in the boys 13-14 1,500 meters in 4:52.64 and 12^th in the boys 13-14 3,000 meters in 10:33.91. And, yes, winner Jonah Gorevic’s 9:22.96 in the 3,000 beat the previous meet record by almost 0.6 second.

Just in December, the three Gibsons ran in the USATF National Junior Olympic Cross Country Championships in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Mary Kathryn was 41^st of 294 runners, narrowly missing beating the 13-minute mark in 9-10 3,000-meter run. Travis finished among the top one-third of the field in the boys 11-12 3K run, and Peter had a strong run in the 8-under 2,000-meter race.

In Travis’ mind, Mary Kathryn has come a long way in her running.

“Whenever we started, she wasn’t very fast, and then something happened, and I think … I don’t know … she took off and started getting faster and kicking everybody’s butts,” he said.

The siblings represent the Track Houston club in their races but practice in Nederland. It’s when they’re fine-tuning their skills that they do what many siblings do — challenge each other.

“I chase them and they try to run away from me,” Travis said, explaining the stagger starts. “Sometimes, I’ll catch them early or I’ll catch them right at the line or I won’t catch them at all.”

The national indoor meet does not signal the end of the Gibsons’ racing calendar. Rick Gibson is planning for the three to race USATF- and AAU-sanctioned championship meets regionally and nationally.

Meanwhile, he’s looking for more young distance runners to join his trio. Those interested are asked to call Rick at 363-3930.