All The Small Things 

Moments of clarity, exhilaration, trepidation and resolve have fed Newbury Park's ascension to becoming the best American high school cross country team of all time

 

A DyeStat story by Dave Devine

Meet Photos by Chuck Utash

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It’s hard to say what was different that afternoon.

Difficult to discern how that July day was distinct from any of the others that the Newbury Park cross country team had spent along the edge of southern California’s Big Bear Lake.

Was it the angle of the sun off the shimmering water?

Did the light suddenly catch them differently?

Was it the impressive sight of bodies in flight? Teenagers untethered, one by one, from the rocks where they were jumping?

All lanky and loose-limbed, tan and cavalier.

Was it the mixture of laughter and splashing? The easy way they joked and cajoled and encouraged each other?

Their coach, Sean Brosnan, had been observing his team for several weeks at their make-shift altitude camp at a lake high in the San Bernardino National Forest. He’d watched them hammer jaw-dropping tempo efforts along sun-baked dirt roads at 7,000 feet of elevation. Seen them set off on long runs up trails with 1,000-foot ascents. Spoken at length about the importance of taking care of the small things — sleep, stretching, hydration, activation exercises.

But on this afternoon, he was watching them jump off rocks. 

There was no running. No timed intervals. No established benchmarks. None of the expected ways that Brosnan would typically measure his team’s progress.

They were merely gathered at an outcropping of boulders that juts from the western end of the lake. Known to the team colloquially as “The Rocks,” it’s a frequent afternoon destination during what has become Newbury Park’s annual month at the high-altitude lake.

“Twenty-foot cliffs, 30-foot…depends on the year with the water level,” Brosnan says. “But it’s where we hang out.”

In the last few years, encouraged largely by junior twins Leo Young and Lex Young, it’s become something of a team tradition that everyone will attempt a flip off the rocks into the water below.

“I think we had almost every single person on the team at least try one,” Lex says, “even if they just belly-flopped or something.”

The coach gave it a shot one afternoon.

“It was actually kind of scary,” Brosnan recalls, “I hadn’t done one in like 20 years.”

His success is still up for debate among certain members of the team.

“He for sure tried to do it,” Lex says. “There were a couple…” He pauses a moment, searching for the most charitable word. “Unsuccessful attempts, but I think he started to get it towards the end.”

“He definitely got full rotation,” Leo chimes in, “so I would count it as a flip.”

Full flip or not, on the afternoon in question there were no acrobatics for Brosnan. He was off to the side, observing from a distance. Watching the leaping, absorbing the laughter.

He clearly recalls the feeling he had then, a sudden surge of confidence.

“I remember specifically sitting there,” he says, “and they’re not even running, they’re just jumping off rocks and hanging out, and I’m going, ‘Okay, this is going to be an insane team. Not only can they run, but they’re all best friends.” 

His belief came, not from numbers on a watch or times on a track, but from the way his team interacted. How they connected. How they trusted each other.

Brosnan sat at the edge of that lake, watching his team recline on sun-warmed granite, and realized that all the preseason projections based on times and returning runners, all the expectations that the 2021 Newbury Park boys would be a truly historic cross country squad, might actually come to fruition. 

“This really is going to be the best team ever,” he thought. “Like, ever.” 

At a certain point, you run out of superlatives.

Greatest ever. Incomparable. Peerless.

Unparalleled.

A mere four months after that afternoon on the rocks at Big Bear Lake, there are no serious arguments to be made regarding the best boys high school cross country team in U.S. history.

There is only certitude.

The body of work speaks for itself. The course records and the all-time list revisions. The top-five sweeps and the impenetrable lead pack. The crowds along the courses, five- and six-deep in places, craning for a vantage to see this team blur past.

Cell phones out. Lining up after the race for an autograph or a selfie. 

Hoping to capture a scrap of distance running history.

At this point, all the big descriptors have been exhausted. All the massive moments, all the epic races and workouts, have been filmed and photographed. What remains instead, for anyone still grasping for explanation, is a collection of small things.

Fragments. Glimpses. Caught moments.

The kinds of moments when everything felt right and nothing was in doubt.

Or the other moments, when things were in danger of sliding sideways. When the weight of expectation might have caused it all to crumble.

Moments like this, when the guy everyone figures is the undisputed top gun finishes as the fourth man, and spends the short walk from the chute to the team tent picking through the debris of his disappointment.

Colin Sahlman, Newbury Park’s projected No. 1 entering the 2021 season, knew the squad had a potent front four, he just hadn’t expected to be on the back end of that quartet at the first big meet of the fall.

The Young twins had demonstrated, through a stunning sophomore track campaign, that they were close to Sahlman’s fitness level, but up in the altitude of Big Bear Lake Colin’s younger brother, Aaron — then a rising junior, like the Youngs — had narrowed the gap on the presumed big three. 

“It became even more clear that our team was just…insane,” Colin says. “Like no one’s ever seen before. We were excited to finally preview that at Woodbridge.”

Some thought the Panthers might wait for October’s ASICS Clovis Invitational to open at full strength, especially with expected No. 5 man, Daniel Appleford, recovering from a summer illness, but the draw of a Saturday night race under the lights at the Woodbridge Classic — and a shot at recent alum Nico Young’s all-time 3-mile record of 13:39.7 — proved too attractive.

When the gun went off for the Doug Speck Sweepstakes race September 18, the top four immediately began executing their plan: push together through the first two miles, then take off from there.

In the end, it was Leo Young who claimed older brother Nico’s all-time mark, streaming home through a phalanx of fans to a winning time of 13:38.1. Aaron Sahlman was a revelation in second at 13:42.3, while Lex Young crossed third in 13:44.4.

Colin Sahlman, the lone senior in the group, was fourth in 13:48. 

With Appleford in the rated race as part of his gradual return to varsity, junior Hector Martinez closed out the Newbury Park scoring five. The Panthers tallied a record-low 25 points and demolished their own team time record of 71:13.7 from 2019, clocking an astonishing 69:30.9.

It was exactly the statement race they were hoping to execute, but even as Colin Sahlman celebrated, he couldn’t help but mull his own fade to fourth.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with my performance,” he recalls. “I was down for a little, but I pretty quickly came to the realization that this is what’s best for the team. Our performance that day was incredible.”

It was a small thing, that pivot from disappointment to acceptance. 

A minor reframing.

It might have happened by the time Sahlman reached the team tent. Or perhaps on the cool down afterward, as the weight of what they’d accomplished settled in. But in an ambitious season in which all the variables matter, the senior leader’s mindset can make all the difference.

“Seeing my teammates in front of me,” Sahlman says now, “made me realize the depth we have. I’d felt like there was some pressure on me to be the No. 1 guy, and after that race, I didn’t feel that pressure anymore. We’re all so close to one another; it can be anyone’s race on any given day.”

It’s an outlook that Brosnan has been trying to instill since starting at Newbury Park six years ago.

Unselfishness. Generosity. Interchangeability.  

“Nobody cares if they’re not number one,” the coach says, “and that’s a big deal. You’ve got to be able to accept that. I’ve gotten on guys about that before. I’ve pulled them aside and said, ‘This isn’t the team for you if that’s going to bother you.’”

Perhaps more than any other team he’s coached, Brosnan has seen this year’s edition commit to that ethic.

“Once they accepted that, I knew this team was going to be great. Because there was no competition, it was just about making everyone better.” 

A collection of small things.

Like the lift you get from a teammate running just off your shoulder late in a race.

For Leo Young, the moment he realized this Newbury Park team would be as special as everyone imagined came exactly two miles into a race at the ASICS Clovis Invitational, three weeks after Woodbridge.

Once again, the top four had achieved an arms-length proximity, separating themselves completely from the pursuing field.

“Pretty crazy,” Leo recalls thinking, “we have four guys this close, all working together.”

The team had agreed, prior to the race, that Aaron and Leo would take out the early pace, easing the burden on Colin. After that, each took turns shepherding the pace through the 2-mile mark, switching off lead multiple times.

There were no gestures or verbal prompts — You take it now — just the intuition that develops within a team: who’s feeling good, who’s still full of run, who needs to drop into the slipstream for a few minutes.

“That makes it a lot easier mentally,” Leo says, “to get through the tough points. That second mile at Woodward Park is grueling. But once we get to that 2-mile mark, whoever feels good on that day has to go.”

On that day, it was Colin who had the legs to lead the team across.

Leo, coming off his big victory at Woodbridge, hung on gamely for second.

“Colin took the lead,” he says, “and I was like, ‘Good for him, that’s awesome.’ I wasn’t mad or anything. He was feeling good and I wanted him to do well.”

Another sweep of the top four places for Newbury Park.

Another historic mark for team time, for 5 kilometers this time, with the Panthers whittling nearly two minutes from their own record — 75:26.7 down to 73:36.6.

The team’s pre-race focus on support, the emphasis on collective achievement over individual laurels, becomes even more understandable if you know something of Brosnan’s own high school experience.

The coach grew up on Long Island, N.Y., attending Wantagh High near Jones Beach. At the time, the school had a strong girls team for cross country and track, but the boys side was lacking. A talented runner, Brosnan had no one close to his ability to train with or race alongside.

In some ways, and on the far side of the country, he’s built the team he wishes he had.

“I’ve always believed,” he says, “from when I first decided to coach high school instead of going in another direction, that if I could get a group of half-way decent kids I could make them great.”

And it’s not just the boys at Newbury Park who’ve become national class.

The girls team has been ranked nationally this season as well, and in senior Samantha McDonnell, has one of the best individuals in the country.

“The culture has shifted a little every year,” Brosnan says, “but after Nico (Young) was there, everyone wanted to be that good again. Or they wanted to be better than Nico.”

He notes how the daily presence of the eldest Young brother — one of the best runners in high school history — demystified excellence for the rest of the team.

“They’d see it every day,” Brosnan says. “Why wouldn’t they think they could do it?”

When the coach considers this year’s team, it’s Aaron Sahlman’s emergence that’s been his biggest surprise.

“He’s really stepped up in the role of being at the elite level,” Brosnan says. “I mean, yes, he ran a 4:08 last year, but I still wasn’t sure where he’d be. But the first race, he just threw down.”

Asked to explain that breakthrough, Aaron mentions his summer in Big Bear. His consistent effort. His steadfast belief that he belonged with the top three.

“I just put in a lot of work,” he says. “Now I’m up with them, and it’s super exciting.”

He points to the lift he gets from running with the top three. Not simply the sense of being pushed, but the act of drawing strength.

They all mention it at some point, the wordless way they carry each another through the last, painful mile. It might be the grin a teammate offers when you were expecting a grimace. The look that says, We got this.

We got you.

Or the quick, over-the-shoulder nod with a kilometer to go: It’s only us now, we’re clear of the field. This is just like tempo miles up at Big Bear. This is intervals back home.

This is four friends, out for a hard run.   

Small things.

Like the sound of shuffling feet in a hospital hallway.

Not the sound of infirmity, but of resilience.

When Newbury Park’s expected fifth man, Daniel Appleford, experienced a stomach illness halfway through the July camp at Big Bear Lake, and had to be rushed down the mountain for treatment at a nearby hospital, he figured it was the end of his role in the historic season.

“My first thought,” he remembers, “was, ‘This cross country season is over for me. I should probably just start training for track.’”

In the early weeks at altitude camp, he’d been right with the team, exhibiting the kind of fitness that saw him run 8:56.8 for 3,200 meters as a junior. He was hanging on for tempo runs, logging miles on the trails at the heels of the Youngs and the Sahlmans. But in the closing days of that camp, Daniel was relegated to a hospital while his teammates continued accumulating fitness.

The knowledge of that separation left him restless. The first moment he was allowed to pad through the hallways, he did.

Moving just to move.

For three weeks, no running at all.

“And then I started, honestly, walk-slash-jogging,” Appleford says. “It was pretty tough.”

He’d make it two miles before exhaustion hit. Then three.

Stringing together small segments.

Still taking the long view: probably track, not cross country.

Meanwhile, his teammates were roaring through workouts.

But even as Appleford harbored a slim hope of rejoining the varsity seven, other guys were stepping up. Runners like Hector Martinez, Dev Doshi and Aaron Cantu all filled out the roster in various meets.

“Trust me,” Brosnan says, “it can be a struggle to get all the kids on the line sometimes. You have little things that happen behind the scenes that nobody sees.”

He rattles off a list of ailments, sounding like a resident completing rounds:

“Kids get sick, twist their ankles, sprain their ankles, have a rash, have an infection, break an arm, get mono, can’t run…Look, this is just as difficult as anything else.”

For his part, Appleford slowly began to trust that he wouldn’t have to shelve his aspirations until the spring.

One workout, about a month ago, helped him believe he was fully back.

The team was knocking out 2-kilometer repeats and Appleford was able to hang just off the lead four. After the workout, Brosnan informed him he was beating times that former Panthers star Jace Aschbrenner, now at the University of Colorado, had run in the same workout two years earlier.

“That really gave me a lot of confidence,” Appleford says. “I felt like I was getting back to my full potential.”

A few weeks later, at the CIF Southern Section Division 1 championship, Appleford held down the fifth slot for the Newbury Park boys, running within seven seconds of the tightly-bunched top four as they dropped the first 15-point score in the 96-year history of the meet.

“It was surreal,” Daniel says, speaking not only of the meet, but the distance from that hospital bed to the starting line.

“I draw so much strength from the team bond, just having all those guys around me.”

Now, only one race remains.

After the dominant performance at the CIF Southern Sectional, the November 27th California state meet was more coronation than actual contest.

In claiming the Division 1 title, the Newbury Park boys produced the lowest score, largest margin of victory and fastest team time in meet history.

Colin Sahlman, cementing his status as the top-ranked harrier in the nation, roared to victory in 14:26.5, second-fastest time ever recorded on the 5-kilometer Woodward Park layout. Following in close order were Leo and Lex Young, and then Aaron Sahlman, completing a once-unthinkable sweep of the top four places in the largest division of the largest state in the country. Appleford, continuing his rebound, crossed seventh but scored sixth, securing a stingy 16 points for the team. 

It was the lowest score tallied in California state meet history, across all divisions.

Now, the final race for the Panthers looms on December 4, the Garmin RunningLane Cross Country Championships in Huntsville, Alabama.

It’s a meet that had originally been scheduled for the same weekend as the California State Championship, but on a conference call the day after Nike announced the cancellation of Nike Cross Nationals, Brosnan assured meet directors that he would commit immediately if they could shift the date a week later.

“Within a day they were able to switch it,” Brosnan recalls. “And I said, ‘We’re in, girls and guys. One-hundred percent, we’re going.’”

Less than a week later, teams from all over the country had announced their plans to head for Huntsville. Such is the gravitational pull of this Newbury Park team, such is the draw of racing a squad that is simultaneously the best team ever and comprised of the top individuals in the country. In remarkably short order, the Alabama meet became the de facto national championship for the 2021 season.

And with the Panthers heavily favored to win, it’s tempting to assume that all of this was pre-ordained. That the boys from Newbury Park simply have to show up and run, a team too good to fail.

But that ignores the many things that might have gone awry. The several things that did. The injuries and the hiccups. Daniel Appleford’s hospitalization. A calf strain that has sidelined Aaron Cantu. It disregards the countless ways that team chemistry can become fickle, the ways that competitiveness, particularly between brothers, can sometimes turn pernicious — neither of which became issues for this team.

And so it can be tempting, particularly near the end, to seek big explanations for this success. To pursue the magic formulas and silver bullets — workouts, mileage, daily routines.

But what if it’s been the small things all along?

What if the magic is in the minor moments?

The swallowed disappointment. The assuring mid-race glance. The hopeful steps from the hospital bed.

What if, on the eve of the final race, we rewind this greatest of seasons? Unbreak the finish line tapes and spin back the homestretch sprints and cycle through the mile markers and return the runners to the starting lines. Reel through an autumn in reverse, from the state meet to the Southern Sectional to Clovis to Woodbridge…and then farther.

August. July. Big Bear. 

Back to the Rocks. 

Rewind the splashes in the cove, watch the lake inhale the drops and settle. Elevate the lanky teenagers, placing them high again on the boulders.

Bodies poised, about to jump.

Try to see what Sean Brosnan saw that afternoon.

Maybe this really is the year.

Imagine what might be possible. What these kids might do —

Rewind what Lex Young said, and then listen again:

“I think we had almost every single person on the team at least try a flip, even if they just belly-flopped.”

Consider what that captures: Commitment, vulnerability, trust, support.

“It shows,” Lex says, “that if you’re willing to flip off a cliff, you’re willing to take a risk.”

And then consider the ways that shared risk can cement a team.

The kind of risk that lets everyone know they can trust each other. That they’re all in. The kind of shared risk that leads to other risks. Like the risk of putting yourself out there and possibly failing. Like the risk of training hard for a top seven spot you might not make.

Like the risk of committing to a disarmingly simple, breathtakingly ambitious goal:

Becoming the best to ever do something.

Like, ever.