Week in Review: Santiago comes through in crunch time
Girls' team edges three-time defending champions to win first California state cross country title
“Every place counts” is a phrase that cross country coaches have no doubt been telling their runners since team competition became part of the sport in the second half of the 19th Century.
In a sport in which teams compile points based on the combined places of their top five finishers and the team with the lowest score wins, the placing of a team’s No. 4 or 5 runner can be as important as its top competitor.
Such was the case in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday when the No. 4 runner for the girls’ team from Santiago High School in Corona moved up eight places during the final mile of the Division I race to help her squad edge three-time defending champion Buchanan of Clovis, 57-58, for the title.
Trabuco Hills of Mission Viejo, the No. 16-ranked team in the nation, finished third with 76 points, followed by Clovis North of Fresno with 197 points and Del Norte of San Diego with 205 in the race in which 21 teams took part.
Buchanan, which had defeated second-place Oak Ridge of El Dorado Hills by 118 points in winning its third consecutive title last year, had entered the meet as the No. 7-ranked girls’ team in the nation by dyestat.com. The Bears held a 41-47 lead over second-place — and No. 9-ranked — Santiago after the first mile of the 5,000-meter race held at Woodward Park, and they were up, 47-57, at the 2.1-mile mark.
However, Santiago made up 11 points on the favorites during the final mile of the race to emerge with the program’s first state title.
“It’s the first one in school history and it means everything,” Santiago coach Rick Etheridge said in a post on the sbsun.com site. “It goes to show, if you put in the work, the results will come. The girls were willing to put in the work ever since the start of training. That allowed us to get to this point.”
There was a lot to report on from last week. Therefore, this notes column is on the long side. If this email appears clipped or truncated in your inbox, you should be able to click on “View entire message” to read it in its entirety.
Junior Rylee Blade, the defending state champion in the 3,200 meters on the track, led Santiago to victory with a winning time of 16 minutes 48.5 seconds after finishing third in the Division I race of the state meet last year.
Sophomores Braelyn Combe and Taylor Davis were the Sharks’ No. 2 and 3 runners, respectively, as Combe finished fifth in 17:35.1 and Davis placed 10th in 17:51.6. In addition, Junior Audrey Buckley was Santiago’s No. 5 runner when she crossed the finish line in 38th place with a time of 18:30.2.
However, senior Madilyn Siana, who had placed 59th last year, finished 24th in 18:13.9 on Saturday after moving up eight places — and improving her scoring total by a critically important five points — in the final mile of the race.
Blade and Combe had maintained their first- and fifth-place positions during the last mile, while Davis and Buckley had dropped back three and four spots, respectively. But Siana’s surge proved critical in Santiago’s victory against a tightly bunched Buchanan team whose No.1 runner — sophomore Taylor Torosian — placed 11th in 17:54.2 and whose No. 5 finisher — sophomore Kynzlee Buckley — crossed the finish line in 23rd place in 18:11.7.
“We knew we were going into it as the underdogs,” said Combe, a transfer who placed 24th in the Division I race last year when she was a student at Rancho Cucamonga High.
As an added bonus, the cumulative time of Santiago’s top five runners — commonly referred to as a team time — was 88:59.3, the fastest ever recorded on the Woodward Park course which has been hosting the CIF State Cross Country Championships since the meet began in 1987.
The previous team-time record of 89:10.8 had been set in 2015 when Great Oak High of Temecula won the fourth of seven consecutive state Division I titles.
“I want to position ourselves to not only be a good team, but to be one of the best teams of all-time,” Etheridge said. “I’m so thankful we made it happen on the day when it was the most important. It doesn’t matter how fast you run at Woodbridge at the beginning of the year, or the league meet, it’s about what you do at the end when it counts most.”
Statistically speaking: When Trabuco Hills High of Mission Viejo placed third in the Division I girls’ race of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday, the team’s 76-point total was the lowest score by a third-place squad at the largest school level since the meet began in 1987.
The previous lowest total by a third-place team in a Division I girls’ race had been 107 points, which was first achieved by Arroyo Grande in 1990 and equalled by Madera in 1993.
In addition, Trabuco Hills’ 76-point total was the second lowest by a third-place girls’ team at any level in the 36-year history of the meet.
Northwood of Irvine had totaled 66 points in finishing third behind first-place Chadwick of the Palos Verdes Peninsula (56) and second-place San Francisco University (59) in the Division V girls’ race of the 1999 state championships.
Runaway victory: JSerra Catholic of San Juan Capistrano won its third consecutive girls’ Division IV title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday, but the team’s win was quite different from its previous two when it came to the Lions’ margin of victory.
JSerra had defeated La Canada, 122-131, for the Division IV title in 2021 and it bested Oaks Christian of Westlake Village, 71-82, last year. But the No. 5-ranked team in the nation rolled to a 40-151 victory over runner-up Palos Verdes of Palos Verdes Estates on Saturday, thanks to a 2-3 finish by sophomore Summer Wilson and junior Sophie Polay, who ran 17:31.6 and 17:32.9, respectively, over the 5,000-meter course at Woodward Park.
Sophomore Chiarra Daley of La Jolla won the race in 17:09.2 after finishing second to junior Payton Godsey of Oaks Christian last year.
Godsey, who has signed a national letter of intent with Northern Arizona University, had won her third consecutive Southern Section title at Mt. San Antonio College on Nov. 18, but she ran with an injury during that race and did not attempt to defend her title on Saturday.
In addition to Wilson and Polay, JSerra’s other scoring runners were sophomore Kaylah Tasser in eighth place in 17:51.9, junior Brynn Garcia in 10th in 18:02.0, and freshman Reese Holley in 19th in 18:42.2.
The Lions’ team time of 89:40.6 was the second fastest of the meet in all five divisions and it moved them to ninth on the all-time course list.
Rolling on: Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura High won her second consecutive individual title while leading her team to victory in the Division II girls’ race of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday.
Engelhardt, a junior, clocked a Division II meet record of 16:40.7 over the 5,000-meter course at Woodward Park to pace Ventura, the No. 14-ranked team in the nation, to an 85-114 victory over runner-up Whitney of Rocklin. It was Ventura’s third state title and first since winning its second consecutive Division I championship in 2004.
In addition to Engelhardt, the Cougars’ other scoring runners were sophomore Melanie True, who placed sixth in 17:57.1, junior Tiffany Sax, 22nd in 18:26.0, sophomore Aelo Curtis, 23rd in 18:29.2, and senior Violet Hurguy, 54th in 19:11.4.
Known as a classic front runner, Englehardt had a lead of more than 22 seconds when she came through the first mile in 5:03.0 and her advantage had grown to little more than 40 seconds when she passed the 2.1-mile mark in 11:21.3.
Her final time of 16:40.7 left her more than a minute in front of runner-up Arielle Avina of Murietta Valley in Murietta, who ran 17:41.9. It was also the fastest of the meet over all five divisions and was just short of the 16:39.3 clocking she had run in winning the Clovis Invitational on Oct. 7 while running on the same course. That time had moved her to second on the all-time course list behind the 16:30.3 effort that Malibu’s Claudia Lane had run in winning the Division IV title in the 2017 state championships.
Despite winning her second consecutive individual title, Engelhardt seemed most pleased with what she and her teammates accomplished together.
“I’m very excited with the team title,” she said in a Ventura County Star post. “That was our goal basically today. This whole season, we knew — especially after Clovis — we knew we had the potential to do it. We’re pretty excited.”
Five and counting: When junior Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura High won her second consecutive Division II girls’ title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday, it raised the number of individual state titles she has won to five.
In addition to the two cross country titles, she won the 1,600 meters in the state track and field championships in 2022 as a freshman and she was a double champion in the 800 and 1,600 in the state finals in late May.
In addition to the five titles, she was the runner-up in the Division II race of the state cross country championships as a freshman in 2021 and she placed second in the 800 during the state track and field championships in the spring of the following year.
Looking forward I: JSerra Catholic and Santiago High in Corona are two of 22 prep teams from across the nation that are scheduled to compete in the girls’ race of the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.
In addition, juniors Sadie Englehardt of Ventura High and Holly Barker of Trabuco Hills in Mission Viejo, and freshman Sydney Rubio of Huntington Beach are individual entries in the race that will be contested over the 5,000-meter layout at Glendoveer Golf Course.
JSerra Catholic and Santiago, the Nos. 5- and 9-ranked teams in the nation, are the two automatic team qualifiers from California, based on their performances in winning the Division IV and I titles, respectively, in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday.
Engelhardt, Barker, and Rubio were selected as three of the state’s six individual qualifiers for the meet based on their performances in the state championships.
Engelhardt recorded the fastest time of the state meet when she won the Division II title with a 16:40.7 clocking over the 5,000-meter course at Woodward Park. Barker finished second in the Division I race in 17:05.0 and Rubio placed third in 17:26.5.
The girls’ race will start at 2:35 p.m., Eastern Standard Time.
It is scheduled to begin 90 minutes after the boys’ race, which will start at 1:05 p.m.
The meet will be livestreamed — via a paid subscription — on runnerspace.com, starting at noon.
Dominant victory: The San Clemente High boys’ team made sure history did not repeat itself in the Division I race of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday by rolling to a 48-102 victory over runner-up Great Oak of Temecula.
San Clemente, the No. 8-ranked prep team in the nation by dyestat.com, had defeated No. 22 Great Oak, 60-84, in winning the Southern Section Division 1 title a week before the state meet. But the Tritons had also beaten Great Oak, 73-95, for the section title last year, only to have the Wolfpack counter with a 67-80 win over San Clemente in the state championships.
That did not come close to happening at Woodward Park on Saturday.
San Clemente turned an 83-84 lead over Great Oak after the first mile into a 64-100 advantage at the 2.1-mile mark and a 54-point gap at the end of the 5,000-meter race that resulted in the Tritons winning their first ever boys’ title in the meet that began in 1987.
Trabuco Hills of Mission Viejo, the No. 26-ranked team in the nation, finished third with 119 points, followed by Palisades of Pacific Palisades with 128.
San Clemente was paced by Brett Ephraim, who ran 14:58.6 to place second in a race that was won by fellow senior Jason Parra of Millikan High in Long Beach.
Parra, who had placed sixth last year, ran 14:56.8 after leading the field through the first mile in 4:43.3 and the 2.1-mile mark in 10:17.7.
Senior twins Taj and Pierce Clark were San Clemente’s Nos. 2 and 3 runners as they finished ninth in 15:12.7 and 13th in 15:17.3, respectively.
Sophomore Dallin Harrington finished 25th in 15:28.6 and senior Kai Olsen placed 27th in 15:30.5 for San Clemente, whose team time of 76:27.8 was the second-fastest of the meet and the 11th fastest ever run over the Woodward Park course.
San Clemente’s collective ability to finish strong over the second half of its races has been one of its strengths all season and it was again on Saturday as the Tritons’ top five runners dropped their team scoring total by 16 points in the final mile of the contest.
“They knew that feeling (that came with not winning last year), they did not want to experience again,” San Clemente coach Dave Luciani said in an ocregister.com post. “But also, just in the overall, just keeping it on the positive end of wanting to make sure they did whatever the could to help deliver the first state title to the boys in school history. So that was a big goal.”
Impressive run: Although Great Oak High of Temecula was unable to defend its Division I boys’ title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships last Saturday, the Wolfpack’s runner-up finish to San Clemente extended a streak that has seen it finish first or second in the past nine state meets.
Great Oak won six consecutive Division I titles from 2014-19 before finishing second to Newbury Park in 2021 following the cancellation of the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It then defeated San Clemente for the team championship in 2022 before finishing second last Saturday.
Great grouping: Palisades High of Pacific Palisades did not have a top-25 finisher in the Division I boys’ race of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday. But the Dolphins finished fourth in the team standings with 128 points after their top five runners placed 28th, 32nd, 43rd, 45th, and 46th.
The gap between Palisades’ No. 1 runner — senior Max Fields in 15:32.1 — and its No. 5 finisher — senior Axel Mammen in 15:44.4 — was a miniscule 12.3 seconds.
The Dolphins’ fourth-place finish tied them for the highest placing ever by a boys’ team from the Los Angeles City Section in the state championships.
Teams from Belmont High in Los Angeles turned in the two previous fourth-place finishes in 1990 and 1998.
Backing up its ranking: As expected, Dana Hills High of Dana Point won the boys’ Division III team title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday with a 42-66 victory over runner-up and defending champion Oakdale.
It was the fifth state title for the Dolphins, and their first since 2009 when they won their third consecutive Division I championship.
Dana Hills, which entered the meet as the No. 11-ranked team in the nation, was paced by individual champion Evan Noonan, whose 14:35.3 clocking over the 5,000-meter course at Woodward Park was the fastest time of the day in any of the five divisions.
Although the Dolphin junior had entered the race as the defending champion, he was nearly four seconds behind first-place Joshua Bell of Templeton when Bell came though the 2.1-mile mark in 10:05.6. But Noonan blew the race open in the final mile as he finished 17 seconds ahead of senior Bell, who placed second in 14:52.3.
Senior Jayden Hernandez was Dana Hills’ No. 2 runner as he placed sixth in 15:13.7.
The Dolphins’ Nos. 3-5 runners were senior Logan Harris in 11th place (15:25.9), sophomore Oliver Hunter in 15th (15:29.8), and senior Garrett Woodruff in 18th (15:33.9).
Oakdale’s top four runners placed third, fourth, 10th, and 19th, but there was a bit of a gap to its No. 5 scorer, who finished 45th.
Dana Hills’ team time of 76:18.6 was the fastest of the meet in any division and moved the Dolphins to ninth on the all-time course list.
Duking it out: Emmanuel Perez of Cathedral High School in Los Angeles won his second consecutive Division IV individual title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday after surviving a good old-fashion slugfest during the final mile of the race.
Senior Lucas Cohen of Albany led a four-runner lead pack — that included Perez — through the first mile in 4:35.9 before junior Eli Fitchen-Young of Santa Cruz paced the foursome past the 2.1-mile mark in 10:01.8.
Perez and Fitchen-Young eventually opened a small lead over Cohen and junior Broen Holman of Sonora in the latter stages of the race, but Perez ended having to hold off Cohen and Holman in the final straightaway after breaking away from Fitchen-Young.
Perez clocked 14:45.5 over the 5,000-meter course at Woodward Park, followed by Cohen in 14:45.9, Holman in 14:46.4, and Fitchen-Young in 14:49.5.
Those times were the second-, third-, fourth-, and fifth-fastest of the five-division boys’ meet.
The only person to run faster than those four was junior Evan Noonan of Dana Hills High in Dana Point, who clocked 14:35.3 in winning the Division III title.
Timing its peak: Santa Barbara High capped its late-season surge by winning the boys’ Division II title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday.
The Dons, paced by second-place finisher Andreas Dybdahl, totaled 91 points to finish comfortably in front of Ventura with 114 points and defending champion Newbury Park with 115.
It was Santa Barbara’s first state title after never having finished among the top five teams in a state title meet race. And it came a week after the Dons had upset Channel League rival Ventura, 86-88, for the Southern Section Division 2 title.
“We’ve targeted this race all year with these boys and it’s incredible to have it come together,” Santa Barbara coach Olivia Perdices said in a noozhawk.com post. “I love these guys! They don’t care how it gets done. They just trust each other to do the job.”
Dybdahl, who had upset fellow senior Anthony Fast Horse of Ventura to win the Southern Section Division 2 individual title, ran 15:05.3 over the 5,000-meter course at Woodward Park on Saturday to finish second after working his way up from 12th place at the mile and fourth place at the 2.1-mile mark.
Junior Aydon Stefanopoulos of Los Gatos placed first in 14:58.4.
In addition to Dybdahl, Santa Barbara’s other scoring runners were junior Cainan Birchim in 12th in 15:31.1, senior Blaise Snow in 22nd in 15:38.4, junior Nicholas Tassos in 50th in 16:01.5, and senior Bode Andrulaitis in 53rd in 16:04.1.
Fast Horse, who has signed a national letter of intent with Oregon, was in second place when he came through the mile in 4:47.6, but he eventually finished 14th in 15:33.2 after dealing with a hamstring issue during the race.
He had run 14:32.5 over the same course on Oct. 7 when he won the Clovis Invitational while defeating a field that included Emmanuel Perez of Cathedral High in Los Angeles, Evan Noonan of Dana Hills in Dana Point, and Jason Parra of Millikan in Long Beach.
Noonan won the Division III title in 14:35.3 on Saturday, Perez placed first in the Division IV race in 14:45.5, and Parra won the Division I championship in 14:56.8.
Looking forward II: San Clemente High, Dana Hills in Dana Point, and Great Oak of Temecula are three of the 22 prep teams from across the nation that are scheduled to compete in the boys’ race of the Nike Cross Nationals meet in Portland, Oregon, on Saturday.
In addition, seniors Emmanuel Perez of Cathedral High in Los Angeles and Jason Parra of Millikan in Long Beach are individual entries in the race that will be contested over the 5,000-meter layout at Glendoveer Golf Course.
San Clemente and Dana Hills, the Nos. 8- and 11-ranked teams in the nation, are the two automatic team qualifiers from California, based on their performances in winning the Division I and III titles, respectively, in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno last Saturday.
Great Oak received an at-large berth after finishing second to San Clemente in the Division I race of the state meet.
Perez and Parra were selected as two of the state’s six individual qualifiers for the meet based on their performances in the state championships.
Perez recorded the second-fastest time of the state meet when he won the Division IV title with a 14:45.5 clocking over the 5,000-meter course at Woodward Park. Parra won the Division I race in 14:56.8.
The boys’ race will start at 1:05 p.m., Eastern Standard Time, followed by the girl’s contest at 2:35.
The meet will be livestreamed — via a paid subscription — on runnerspace.com, starting at noon.
Two in a row: Rodrigue Kwizera of Burundi and Likina Amebaw of Ethiopia won their second consecutive races in the Cross Internacional de la Constitucion in Alcobendas, Spain, on Sunday.
It was the sixth gold level meet of the 2023-24 season’s World Athletics Cross Country Tour.
Kwizera and Amebaw had recorded narrow wins in the men’s and women’s races in the fifth gold level meet in Soria, Spain, on Nov. 19. But they had more comfortable margins of victory in Alcobendas.
Kwizera, 24, broke away from Martin Kiprotich of Uganda with a kilometer left in the 10.1-kilkometer race while on his way to a 29:30 clocking that left him eight seconds ahead of Kiprotich and 22 seconds in front of Burundian countryman Celestin Ndikumana.
Amebaw, fellow Ethiopian Asayech Ayichew, and Italian Nadia Battocletti comprised the lead pack 7,000 meters into the 8.1-kilometer women’s race. But Battocletti had fallen off the pace with a kilometer remaining and the 25-year-old Amebaw separated from Ayichew with about 700 meters left in the contest while on her way to a winning time of 26:33.
Ayichew finished second in 26:38, followed by Battocletti in 26:50.
Three for three: Philimon Kiptoo Kipchumba of Kenya won his third marathon of the year when he set a course record of 2 hours 5 minutes 35 seconds in the Shanghai Marathon on Sunday.
The 25-year-old Kipchumba slashed nearly two minutes off his personal best of 2:07:28 that he had set in winning the Munich Marathon last year.
Alphonce Felix Simbu of Tanzania finished second in 2:05:39, followed by Kenyans Solomon Kirwa Yego in 2:05:42 and Kenneth Keter in 2:05:53.
The leaders clocked 29:50 for the first 10 kilometers before coming through 15 kilometers in 44:48 and 20 kilometers in 59:55.
The eventual top four finishers and a pace maker came through 30 kilometers in 1:29:24 after running the previous 10-kilometer split in 29:29.
With the pace maker long gone, Yego made an unsuccessful attempt to break open the race at 38 kilometers, although Keter began to fall back of the leaders as a result of Yego’s surge.
Kipchumba, Simbu, and Yego were still together at 41 kilometers, but Kipchumba took the lead with about 500 meters remaining in the 42.2-kilometer race while on his way to a four-second victory over Simbu and a seven-second win over Yego.
Kipchumba’s time smashed the previous course record of 2:07:14 set by fellow Kenyan Paul Lonyagata in 2015 and it was also the fastest marathon ever run in China.
“It’s my first time in Shanghai. The course is very good and the weather for today is perfect,” Kipchumba said in a World Athletics post. “I am so grateful to win the race and to break the course record, and even China’s (all-comers’) record.”
Kipchumba had previously won the Hong Kong Marathon in 2:10:47 in February and the Xiamen Marathon in China in 2:08:04 in April.
Siranesh Yirga of Ethiopia won the women’s race in 2:21:28 in Shanghai, followed by Selly Chepyego of Kenya in 2:21:51 and Eunice Chumba of Bahrain in 2:22:20.
Although the women’s entry list was topped by Ethiopian Tadu Teshome and her personal best of 2:17:36, the pace in the race was never particularly fast as the leaders came through 10 kilometers in 33:47 and 20 kilometers in 1:07:01 following a second 10k split of 33:14.
After Teshome began to fall off the pace around 30 kilometers, the 23-year-old Yirga had taken control of the race by the 35-kilometer mark and she was well clear of second-place Chepyego at 40 kilometers.
Yirga’s victory was her fourth in five career marathons as she had won races in Lagos, Nigeria, Madrid, Spain, and Ljubljana, Slovenia, last year.
No title attempt this year: European Athletics announced on Nov. 20 that Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway had withdrawn from the European Cross Country Championships in Brussels on Dec. 10 due to an injury.
Ingebrigtsen, 23, had won the last two senior men’s titles in the continental championships after previously winning four consecutive races at the U20 (under 20) level from 2016-19.
According to a post on the nrk.no site, the injury Ingebrigtsen has sustained is in the area of his sacrum, which is the large bone located at the base of the spine that is shaped like an upside-down (inverted) triangle and connects to the pelvis.
Ingebrigtsen’s injury comes after the best track season of his career as he won the 5,000 meters and placed second in the 1,500 in the World Athletics Championships for the second year a row when the meet was held in Budapest, Hungary, in August.
Prior to those championships, he had set a world best of 7:54.10 in the two mile and lowered the European record to 3:27.14 in the 1,500 to move to fourth on the all-time performer list.
After the global title meet, he lowered the world record to 4:43.13 in the 2,000 meters before concluding his outdoor season with a scintillating double in the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon, in which he turned in the third-fastest times in history while winning the mile in 3:43.73 on Sept. 16 and the 3,000 in 7:23.63 the following day.
Track and field All-Americans I: Sprinter Rodrick Pleasant and distance-running twins Lex and Leo Young head the list of five former individual standouts from Southern or Los Angeles City section schools who were named to the 2023 Boys’ High School All-American Team as chosen by Track & Field News.
Pleasant, a freshman at the University of Oregon and a cornerback on the Ducks’ football team, was ranked first in the 100 meters and fifth in the 200. Although he sustained an injury while running the anchor leg on Serra High of Gardena’s 400 relay team in the Arcadia Invitational in early April, he won his second consecutive titles in the 100 and 200 in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Track and Field Championships in late May and had season bests of 10.14 seconds in the 100 and 20.53 in the 200.
He also won the 100 in the Nike Outdoor Nationals in mid-June.
Issam Asinga of Montverde Academy in Florida set national high school records of 9.89 in the 100 and 19.97 in the 200 during the season, but he tested posted for a banned performance enhancing drug after winning both events for Suriname in the South American championships in late July and therefore was not considered for selection to the All-American team.
Although Stanford freshmen Lex and Leo Young were not eligible to compete for Newbury Park High during the 2023 track season because of a CIF rule that prohibits prep runners from competing for their school during the season if they have previously run in races against collegiate or post-collegiate runners, they made their marks on the all-time lists in the 5,000 and 1,500, respectively.
Lex Young lowered the national high school record in the 5,000 to 13:34.96 while finishing 18th in the Los Angeles Grand Prix at UCLA in late May and Leo Young ran a personal best of 3:39.39 in the 1,500 while finishing second in a heat of the Bryan Clay Invitational at Azusa Pacific University in mid-April.
Leo’s time ranks him sixth on the all-time U.S prep performer list in the 1,500 and earned him a No. 2 national ranking for the year in the boys’ 1,500/mile.
Track & Field News does not choose a five-deep All-American team in the 5,000 because it is not a standard high school event, but Lex Young received “special recognition” from the publication for his performances at that distance.
In addition to their recognition in various individual events, Lex Young finished fifth in the voting for the men’s prep athlete of the year, with Leo Young in seventh and Pleasant in eighth.
Simeon Birnbaum, who is now a freshman at Oregon, was selected as the men’s prep athlete of the year based on his performances for Stevens High in Rapid City, South Dakota.
He was ranked first in the 1,500 meters/mile and two mile, and fourth in the 800 meters.
He had bests of 3:37.93 in the 1,500, 3:57.63 in the mile, 8:34.10 in the two mile, and 1:47.96 in the 800. His times in the 1,500 and two mile moved him to second on the all-time U.S. prep lists in those events and his best in the mile put him fourth on the all-time performer list.
Dijon Stanley, a freshman at the University of Utah, and Brendon See, a freshman at the University of Oklahoma, were ranked fourth nationally in the 400 meters and the discus, respectively, based on their performances while they were seniors at Granada Hills Charter High and JSerra Catholic in San Juan Capistrano.
Stanley ran a personal best of 45.77 to win the 400 in the state championships while also finishing second in the 200, and running legs on the first-place 400 relay team and the third-place 1,600 relay squad while leading the Highlanders to their first state team title. He also won the 400 in the Arcadia Invitational in early April.
He is a running back on Utah’s football team and plans to compete unattached during the 2024 track and field season as the school does not field a men’s team in that sport.
See won his second consecutive state title in the discus, as well as his first in the shot put, and raised his personal best to 62.56 meters (205 feet 3 inches) in the discus during the season. He also finished third in that event in the Nike Outdoor Nationals.
In relay events, Granada Hills Charter ranked third in the 4 x 100 after winning the Arcadia Invitational, Mt. San Antonio College Relays, and state championships. The Highlanders’ best of 40.28 was a Los Angeles City Section record and moved them into a tie for third on the all-time state list.
Long Beach Poly ranked second in the sprint medley relay and fifth in the 4 x 400.
The Jackrabbits had season bests of 3:26.31 in the sprint medley and 3:12.99 in the 4 x 400. Like Granada Hills Charter in the 4 x 100, Poly won the Arcadia Invitational, Mt. SAC Relays, and state championships in the 4 x 400.
Track and field All-Americans II: Junior Sadie Engelhardt of Ventura High School and freshman Spencer Young of the University of North Carolina have been named to the 2023 Girls’ High School All-American Team as chosen by Track & Field News, based on their performances during the track and field season.
Engelhardt, who just won her second consecutive Division II title in the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) State Cross Country Championships in Fresno on Saturday, was the top-rated runner nationally in the 1,500 meters/mile after posting the fastest prep times in the 1,500 at 4:13.04, the 1,600 at 4:33.45, and the mile at 4:36.26.
She won her second consecutive title in the 1,600 meters — as well as her first in the 800 — in the CIF State Track and Field Championships in late May. She also won the mile in the Arcadia Invitational and Mt. San Antonio College Relays in April, and in the New Balance Nationals Outdoor meet in mid-June.
In addition to ranking first in the 1,500 meters/mile, Engelhardt finished ninth in the voting for the women’s prep athlete of the year.
Hana Moll, who is now a freshman at the University of Washington, was selected as the women’s prep athlete of the year based on her performances for Capital High School in Olympia, Washington.
Moll was ranked first in the pole vault after tying and then raising the national high school record in the event after the conclusion of the traditional prep season.
She tied the record of 4.61 (15-1½) — set by twin sister Amanda during the indoor season — when she finished third in the USA Track & Field Outdoor Championships in July. She then raised it to 4.65 (15-3) in the qualifying round of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, in August, before finishing ninth in the final at 4.50 (14-9).
The javelin is not contested at the high school level in California, but that is the event in which Young excelled while a student at Marlborough School in Los Angeles.
She ranked fifth nationally and threw a personal best of 163 feet 2 inches (49.74 meters) while winning the 17-18 division of the USA Track & Field Region 15 Championships in late June. She also won the USATF Junior Olympic title.
Four relay teams from the Southern or City sections were awarded top-five rankings in their respective events.
Carson was ranked fourth in the 4 x 100 relay after placing first in the Arcadia Invitational, Mt. San Antonio College Relays, and state championships, and finishing second in the Texas Relays. The Colts also lowered their Los Angeles City Section record to 45.28 in the event.
Culver City and Long Beach Wilson were ranked fourth and fifth in the 4 x 400 relay after finishing first and second in the state championships with season bests of 3:41.08 and 3:42.49, respectively.
Culver City won the Arcadia Invitational and Wilson placed first in the Mt. SAC Relays and the Oregon Relays.
JSerra Catholic of San Juan Capistrano ranked fourth in the 4 x 800 after finishing second to third-ranked Del Norte High of San Diego in the Arcadia Invitational, state championships, and Nike Outdoor Nationals. The Lions’ best of 8:52.26 was the second fastest in state history behind Del Norte’s 8:51.78.