Sergey Sushchikh finished almost a minute faster than he did last year at Saturday’s Mt. SAC Invitational cross-country meet, leading the Dos Pueblos boys to a sixth-place finish out of 24 teams in their Division II race. Sushckikh clocked in at 15:47, taking second place out of 162 runners.
“It was awesome to see Sergey race in such a large field and do so well, I know he is pumped to see how well he can run at CIF, and also a bit humbled. This is the first race all season that he hasn’t won by a long shot,” said coach Leslie Wiggins-Roth.
At the freshman level, budding star Bryan Fernandez led the Chargers to a thrid-place finish by winning the race with a time almost 90 seconds faster than Sushchikh’s freshman mark.
Top DP girls runner Kelly Kosmo collapsed from heat exhaustion at the finish line but was doing better on Saturday night, according to Wiggins-Roth.
“She was off to a great race, in 10th place just after the 2-mile, and then the heat got to her,” said the coach. “She didn’t even remember anything from that point on. I’m really impressed that she was able to finish, it shows how much heart she has.”
Kosmo ended up in 39th place. The DP girls placed fifth in their race with 134 runners. Erin Campbell finished 21st in 20:36, Sophie Pollack 22nd in 20:44 and Lauren Guthrie 25th in 20:54.
Briggs Deardorff led the Santa Barbara High boys, finishing fourth out of 161 racers with a time of 16:18. The Dons finished 17th out of 26 teams. Nolan Walker placed 57th in 18:00 and Nathaniel Taylor took 67th in 18:06 — both personal bests on the course.
Brianna Lopez led the Santa Barbara girls, who also finished in 17th as a team. Lopez was 57th in 20:43, and sophomore Kelley Drechsler notched a course-best time of 22:10.
On Friday, San Marcos competed in the Division III races. The Royal boys took fourth place out of 17 teams, led by Evan Bradford’s time of 16:41, which was good enough for fourth place out of 128 competitors. Parker Funk finished 18th with a time of 17:42.
The San Marcos girls finished in 14th place, with Kate Rheinschild and Jenny Haden finishing 53rd and 54th with identical times of 21:42.
Next up are Friday’s County Championships in Lompoc.
COMPLETE RESULTS:
