A rigorous summer of practice has paid off for the Dos Pueblos cross-country team, as the Chargers won their first Channel League meet since 1996 on their home track Wednesday.
Kelly Kosmo
Kelly Kosmo led the way by crossing the finish in 19 minutes, 34 seconds — an 8-second personal best on the course and a 14-second margin of victory over Ventura’s Hannah Kirkegaard.
As a team, the DP girls beat out Ventura 45-55. Buena was third at 58, San Marcos fourth at 78 and Santa Barbara fifth at 113.
Kosmo said that coach Leslie Wiggins-Roth’s summer regimen of seven practices each week and a training trip to Mammoth in August made a big difference.
“I think it definitely helped me. I feel a lot stronger in the back half of the race now,” she said.
Teammate Erin Campbell was fifth at 20:17, while first-year runner Briana Lopez of Santa Barbara High was sixth at 20:26 and San Marcos’ Jenny Haden was three seconds behind her for seventh place.
Sergey Sushchikh
Dos Pueblos’ Sergey Sushchikh won the boys race in 15:45, beating out Santa Barbara’s Briggs Deardorff by six seconds. San Marcos’ Evan Bradford, who is expected to be in the front with Sushchikh and Deardorff throughout the season, may have started too fast and pushed himself to exhaustion. He finished sixth in 16:33.
“He went out a little too fast, and with the heat he kept pushing hard and pushed until there was nothing left,” said Royals coach Lawrence Stehmeier. “I’m proud of him, because he hung right in there and pushed until the very end.”
Deardorff’s time of 15:51 was his first sub-16:00 performance.
Ventura won the boys race easily, with finishers at the third, fourth, fifth and seventh spots. The Cougars finished at 30, while DP was next at 53. San Marcos scored a 77 while Buena was at 97 and Santa Barbara at 102
Sushchikh was happy with the win but not completely satisfied.
“It wasn’t one of my best races. I didn’t feel too good before it or during it, but I still did pretty well,” he said.
Lopez, a senior and star on the Santa Barbara girls soccer team, has been wanting to run cross-country for years, but coach Olivia Perdices said she was encouraged not to.
“She’s wanted to come out for cross-country every year but has been talked out of it by her soccer coaches,” said the coach. “This year she finally said ‘You know what? It’s not like you’re going to bench me, so I’m going to go out and run’.”
The next Channel League meet will be held on October 15th in Ventura.
