It’s been a record-breaking season for many Santa Clarita Valley teams’ cross-country programs as Hart High School had its boys team break its time record at Woodward Park in Fresno along with the Centurions’ Adrian Cantu breaking the Saugus High School time record during Saturday’s state championship.
“Really proud of the maturity with which the guys approached the race on that big of a stage,” Hart coach Darren James said. “We were ranked seventh in Division 2 going in and came out fourth in Division 2 and eighth in the whole state. Another year of great experience and we’ll return five of the seven next year.”
The Hart Hawks had their boys team compete in the Division 2 race, placing fourth overall out of the 24 teams that participated, with a 1:17:48 total team time.
Jameson Wiley led all Hart runners with a total time of 15:24.2 in 27th place and was roughly 36 seconds off the pace as Josiah Himsl placed alongside in 28th.
After the races were over, James expressed gratitude for the adversity his team faced this season but is also excited as five of the seven runners who competed are returning next year.
“The guys displayed an incredible amount of maturity all season. And we showed up when it really mattered. It’s exciting that most will return next year,” he said.
As for Saugus High School, the Centurions had both the girls and boys compete in their respective Division 2 categories.
The boys’ team placed 11th overall with Cantu, who had the fastest time out of any runner from the Santa Clarita Valley to compete on Saturday, leading his team to a fifth-place finish and total time of 14:54.1.
With all the times combined across all five divisions in the state championship, Cantu placed eighth overall out of the 1,031 boys who ran on Saturday and was 10.9 seconds off the leader.
“It was definitely exceptional. This season he’s shown his strength as a runner and that he’s always had the speed,” Saugus coach Sergey Sushchikh said. “I’m definitely really proud of him. It’s a Saugus school record … It’s just a veryimpressive performance. He also just ran a very tactically smart race.”
On the girls’ side, Lucia Pearson placed a team-best 15th place with a total time of 17:54.0 as the team placed eighth in the overall standings.
“We ran collectively our best race of the season,” Saugus coach Kevin Berns said. “It was a collective effort throughout the entire postseason. Like, we could not have done what we did today if the runners that ran at first events, the runners that ran at CIF finals. We couldn’t have done it without them.”
Berns spoke on Pearson’s performance, as she was the front runner for Saugus on the girls’ side and how she’s unselfishly given her all to the program in the four years she spent with Saugus High School.
“She’s a three-time all-CIF in cross country so all the credit to her,” he said. “Her hard work over the last four years is absolutely tremendous. She’s put in the work and not to take away from her, what she did was amazing, it’s the whole team. And that’s what I really try to strive for is the team effort.”
Canyon’s Owen Souther, who won the Division 2 race in the CIF Southern Section prelims earlier in November, competed as an individual in the state championship in the Division 2 category.
Souther placed 21st in the race with a time of 15:17.4.
In the Division 3 category, the West Ranch Wildcats boys team competed and placed fourth in the overall standings.
Senior Braulio Castillo, who won the Foothill League Individual title during the regular season, placed seventh in the race and earned his team four points with a total time of 15:12.4.
