Mt. SaC Captain's Log 

     Dominating, demolishing, devastating, dismantling, eradicating, desolating, the thesaurus doesn’t have enough words to describe the Drew tsunami that swept through the JV Nationals race with a 35+ second gap between him and second place. But that's not all, because based off how unphased the JV team was after running up some of the toughest hills to race in California, it’s only reasonable to assume that they had some secret elevator to aide them up the hills. One of those using the elevators to victory was clearly Noah Tamagno and Matthew Appahidean who pushed each other through the finish line to both get an equally amazing with the added challenge of jumping over bodies that were still left over from Drew. But that's not all folks, Jacob Edberg and Chris Thornburgh put out an awe inspiring performance as the very first race of the day that clearly motivated everyone who raced later. It goes to show just how deep Brea is because of the immense talent and speed that can clearly be seen down in the JV races.

     Some great performances shined at the world’s largest cross country meet.  The freshman held their own without their numbers 1 and 2, Shane Gaffikin and Matthew Apahidean, who were moved up to the JV Nationals Race.  John Root finished first for the team with an impressive 11th place finish overall.  Ryan Daedler displayed his hard work and dedication at practice by finishing 20th overall and coming in second for the team.  Nicholas Orozco, Carlos Perez, and Tyler Belknap rounded out the scoring for Brea giving the freshman team a 5th place team finish.  Some outstanding performances from the sophomores should also be noted.  Jack Hannum won the sophomore race with a great time of 17:30.  In the JV National Championships, Junior Drew Apahidean had a remarkable performance.  Facing an ankle injury with all the odds against him, Drew did the impossible and won the race with pure courage and toughness, running an extraordinary time of 16:24 on the extremely difficult course.  Tommy Valenti, Dylan Perlson, Nolan Orozco, and Noah Tamagno all fought valiantly helping the team place 2nd overall.  Because of these great performances, Mt. Sac was a huge success and demonstrated the continuous dominance of Brea.

     Friday Night was something else. Something we were expecting, something we were planning for, but not something that we actually thought. Through all the hard work of our varsity squad the last several weeks, we managed to bring enough to the table to get the ultimate of small victories: 1 point. Even though it is something we had experienced before, it still brings shock and panic seeing yourself win in the smallest of margins. It was due to the work of Gio, Daniel, Kevin, Caleb, John, Jon, and Spicer that led us to the 1 point win over the #2 team in the state, West Torrance. Gio managed to place a key spot in the top 10 with at time of 15:19, Daniel and Kevin managed to place themselves in front of West Torrance’s 2 scorer with times of 15:30 and 15:37. Caleb managed to hold on to a 15:48 and John managed to secure our finishing win with a time of 16:03. Even though it managed to be a 1 point margin, Jon would’ve still secured out win if we were actually tied because of his solid time of 16:08, well ahead of West Torrance’s 6. As for Spicer, having it only be his 2nd time running the course, he managed to tackle the course head on with a solid time of 16:19. This was a good motivation and encouragement for the boys after their rough race at OC Champs, but it still shows that more and more work has to be put in. 1 point. The motto of the season.

Brought to you by John Dempsey, Daniel Perez, and Dylan Perlson