Sergey Sushchikh, Evan Bradford and Briggs Deardorff will keep their running feet moving next week, each qualifying for CIF’s Division III Finals at Saturday’s Prelims at Mt. SAC.
Dos Pueblos’ Sushchikh recorded the fastest time of the trio, clocking in at 15 minutes and 47 seconds. Santa Barbara High’s Deardorff’s time of 15:56 was a career best for him on the Mt. SAC course, as was Bradford’s 16-minutes flat.
Deardorff and Bradford are the first males runners from their respective schools to make it this far in a decade.
“He held back for the first mile and then the second mile he just went to work,” recalled Royals head coach Lawrence Stehmeier.
“(Deardorff) just kind of sat in a position that he knew would get him through,” explained Santa Barbara coach Olivia Perdices, saying he ran a controlled race on Saturday and could let lose some more next week.
Dos Pueblos had both its boys and girls teams present, yet neither advanced.
After Sushchikh, freshman Bryan Fernandez was next with a time of 16:32, good for 40th overall.
Lauren Guthrie led the DP girls with a 28th-place finish. Her 19:42 mark was her first time under 20 minutes on the course.
“I’m super proud of our athletes and all that they gave today, looking forward to watching Sergey next week,” said Chargers head coach Leslie Wiggins Roth.
Other scorers for the Chargers were girls Erin Campbell, 38th in 20:10, Sophie Pollack, 44th in 20:20, Sarah Jamieson, 53rd in 21:04 and Caylee Daniel, 58th in 21:12. For the boys, it was Alfred Scott 66th in 17:05, Ben York 68th in 17:07, and Dylan Zukin 70th in 17:12.
