Division 1-2 Boys Super Sweeps
Race 55 - 9:55 am Saturday -
RESULTS - VIDEO - PHOTO ALBUM

It's no longer just
the Royal treatment
Highlanders race well, but have red-hot Trabuco Hills breathing down their necks
story by Rich Gonzalez

Royal Simi Valley 95 (Trabuco Hills 113), Chad Hall CA 14:35 (Michael Cybulski CA 14:45, Matt Tebo NM14:54)

It's no longer just the Royal treatment
Highlanders race well, but have red-hot Trabuco Hills breathing down their necks
13,901 finishers across 96 HS races comprise nation's largest meet in 2006

By Rich Gonzalez
DyeStat/DyeStatCal

WALNUT CA 10/21/06 -- Make no mistake about it, Royal boys... the heat is on. With Royal's continual interchange at the 3-4-5 scoring positions and a difficulty in having all five runners click at once, a red-hot Trabuco Hills crew is closing the gap. And doing it quickly.
In only their second meeting of the year, Royal successfuly defeated the rival Mustangs for a second time, but not so easily as before.

Five weeks ago, the Highlanders topped Trabuco Hills by 51 points and 37 seconds on a flat and fast three miler at the Woodbridge Invitational. On Saturday, the cushion shrank to 18 points and 24 seconds while in a stronger field and along a more challenging 2.91-mile layout at the 59th annual Mt. SAC Invitational. More importantly, Trabuco Hills has sheared away the entire gap at position #1 and was faster than Royal at #2, #3, and #4. All that remains is shoring up the sizeable deficit at the crucial fifth scoring position.

Royal prevailed on Saturday by a 95-113 count in the featured Boys SuperSweepstakes Race, which brought together mostly national-class teams and individuals in a new quirk for the longstanding meet. Royal's 77:12 ranked as fourth-fastest in course history -- and third-fastest since renovations in 1999 made the course faster. Trabuco Hills' 77:36 was eighth fastest in course history and an Orange County record, a week after setting a course record on the Orange County Championships' Irvine Park course.

Central California power Madera ran its best race this season to claim third with 129, well ahead of El Toro (150) and Arcadia (151).

"We've just been up and down. everybody's been changing positions," Royal coach Ryan Luce said. "We haven't found the right chemistry yet, but for us obviously, it's about the end of the year and generally we've been pretty good with that (stage). So hopefully we just keeping working hard as a team and do what we've done in the past. I think one thing that helps us out from here is now after league finals it's one race a week and we're able to train like we really want to and that's where we really get going on all cylinders."

The Trabuco Hills engine has been revving strongly for several weeks now, with senior team leader J.T.Sullivan crediting a small spike in summertime mileage as the catalyst for improved fitness levels. The Mustangs had four runners in the top 20, including #4 Chris Mosier (15:26), who had never before cracked under 16:00 on the Mt. SAC course. What helped Royal counter that to some extent was having senior Danny Benson place 18th in 15:25, a huge lifetime PR on the championship course.

"I just wanted to get out fast and see what I could do," said Benson. "I'm not really much of a frontrunner, but I wanted top try something new today. I knew where I was on the team and I felt good, so jsut went after it. I surprised myself a little bit with my time."

All told, single-day Mt. SAC course records were either matched or broken for most boys teams under 78:00 (two teams), under 79:00 (five), under 80:00 (11) and under 80:30 (18). The previous record for sub-80:30 was 12, achieved under ideal weather conditions (mid-60s) during the sweepstakes portion of last year's invitational. This year, runners were confronted by temperatures in the mid-70's during the featured portion of the meet, although readings soared into the upper 80s during the heart of Saturday's meet schedule.

"It's getting scary," Royal coach Ryan Luce recently said. "Teams are running crazy fast... Woodbridge, Stanford, Clovis -- all kinds of teams are running faster now than we were when we won state for the first time two years ago. Is this happening elsewhere too?"
Yes it is. The bar continues to be raised. Kids are cranking it up all over the map!

Chad Hall pulls away to victory off Reservoir Hill

Individually, the leading boys highlights of the day also occurred in the SuperSweeps Division, where Big Bear's Chad Hall eased away from Royal's Cybulski on the final descent to win going away, 14:35 to 14:45. It was Hall's second triumph over Cybulski in as many head-to-head outings.

New Mexico's Matt Tebo, the top-rated runner in the nation in Steve Underwood's countrywide listing, had trouble coping with the leading Californians here, settling for third in 14:54. Trabuco Hills' J.T. Sullivan, one of the hottest runners on the West Coast over the last six weeks, was fourth in 14:58, with La Sierra senior Spencer Knight rounding out the "Sub-15:00 Club" with a very fine 14:59 clocking.

Hall, who entered here as the favorite after a spectacular final mile surge in winning the Woodbridge Invitational five weeks ago, found the opening pace almost pedestrian in relation to his liking. Bonita Vista's Eric Avila led a large pack hitting the mile marker in 4:42.

"I was actually hoping that they were going to take it (fast) through about two miles and I would make my move there, but everybody was kind of sitting on me except for Eric Avila," said Hall. "I just decided to take it coming (off Poop-Out Hill)... I thought for sure someone was going to take it out real fast, just because of the field. It was pretty amazing."

Hall admitted the course record was in the back of his mind, but a combination of factors prevented a serious challenge to it.

"After Poop-Out, I was really feeling it, the heat especially," added Hall. "I had a feeling the time wasn't going to be as good as I wanted it at that point. Just runnnig alone, the heat, and my legs were real tired by then."

Regardless, Hall found value in coming out of his training regimen to race the big boys at Mt. SAC: "When I heard Tebo was going to be in it, I wanted to come and get a race on with him. It was definitely good to get to race him before nationals and see how he likes to run and stuff. I'm probably not going to run all out again until state. Although at CIF Finals. I might go after (the record)."

Cybulski, who took third at Stanford in addition to his earlier loss to Hall at Woodbridge, ran his second consecutive strong race. First came his impressive 5k win on the state meet course (15:03) two weeks ago, and then a Mt. SAC lifetime best this weekend.

"Avila took it out really fast and the same with the guy from El Rancho (Luis Guevara) and they were kind of pushing the pace at the beginning, so I felt comfortable sitting right there with that pace," said the two-time defending state 3200m champion "I really didn't want to go 4:35 or anything like that the first mile. More like 4:40, maybe 4:45 for that first mile. I was just waiting for Hall and Tebo to make a move and then just go and follow right with them."

Given the fact Hall was so dominant in the final mile at Woodbridge, it was a bit surprising to see Cybulski and anyone else in the field with hopes of winning to be content in letting Hall hang around untested as the final mile approached.

"My plan was to relax on the Switchbacks and kind of stay with them and make my move at Poop-Out," Cybulski said. "But when I got there, Chad was a little too far ahead. So I had to wait for Reservoir Hill. ... Going up Reservoir, I caught him. But then on the downhill, I kind of fell off right there."

When asked about Royal's inability to "click" on all cylinders as a group of runners, Cybulski just smiled and shot back: "(At the) end of the season."

Kent Morikawa, Oak Ridge win Team Sweeps

Torrance's Kent Morikawa overpowered his opposition in the latter stages of the Large Schools Team Sweepstakes race, recording a winning time of 15:02, nine seconds ahead of St. John Bosco star Victor Bonilla. Reno's Walter Juarez was third in 15:13.

Oak Ridge, ranked third in the state in Division II, won the race with 118 points. Rising Division I power Vista Murrieta (131) and Nevada state title favorite Reno (138) placed second and third, respectively. Reno did not look quite as sharp as in past outings, probably due to undertaking its third road trip in four weeks.

Diego Estrada wins Individual Sweeps

Although the advent of the newly featured SuperSweeps division claimed some of the leading talent away from the Individual Sweepstakes race, it was another opportunity for Alisal junior Diego Estrada to win a big race.

Estrada, who also impressed during his big divisional victory at Stanford three weeks ago, won in 15:14 but did not appear to be seriously challenged despite a slim four-second win. Fall River's Brent Handa, opting to race here instead of against his Division V counterparts, boosted his recruiting stock with a very fine 15:18. Previously unheralded Alex Avilez of Valley Center (San Diego area) placed third in 15:23, just ahead of Highland's Jeremy Acosta (15:24) and San Pedro's Steven Calise (15:26).

Division II teams not in the sweepstakes races benefitted a tad from competing in the early-morning session, while non-sweepstakes Division I schools were hindered by the uncomfortable heat which was felt worst at about 1:30 p.m.

All told, there were 13,901 finishers across the 96 high school races in what is easily the largest cross-country invitational in the nation, if not the world.