Santa Barbara High boys cross country put an exclamation point on their season by capturing the CIF Division 2 State title on Saturday in Fresno. The championship is the first in school history.
“We’ve targeted this race all year with these boys and it’s incredible to have it come together,” Santa Barbara coach Olivia Perdices said. “I love these guys! They don’t care how it gets done. They just trust each other to do the job.”
The Dons, who ran their way to an upset victory over Ventura in the CIF-SS championship last week, had their underdog momentum carry them to another trophy-worthy performance in the state meet.
Behind Santa Barbara High’s team score of 91, Ventura finished in second place at 114 and Newbury Park rounded out the podium at 115.
As he has all season, Andreas Dybdahl led the way for Santa Barbara High, finishing in second place in the division with a time of 15:05.3. He finished behind only Los Gatos’ Aydon Stefanopoulos (14:58.4).
The UCLA commit and CIF-SS individual champion found himself in 12th place after the first mile, worked his way up to third after 2.1 miles and crossed the finish line in second.
Dybdahl was followed up by a pair of teammates in the top 25, as Cainan Birchim (15:31.1) slotted into 12th place while Blaise Snow (15:38.4) finished his race in 22nd.
Of the 200 runners competing, all seven of the Dons racers finished in the top 120.
Following the top trio were Nicholas Tassos (50th, 16:01.5), Bode Andrulaitis (53rd, 16:04.1), Benjamin Diaz (93rd, 16:32.6) and Oleksandr Tanasychuk (117th, 16:45.8).
“I couldn’t be prouder of these guys,” Perdices said. “We didn’t have any big results in the early part of the season and people were wondering what we were doing. The team, the coaches, the people close to us that mattered, we trusted we were doing the right thing.
“Huge thanks to the staff: Rusty Snow, Daniel Mountcastle and Moki Nacario and the families that supported these boys.”
Every Santa Barbara High racer ran a 5K personal best.
“They got the ending we’ve been dreaming about and working for since these seniors stepped into their first high school practice masked up and six feet apart,” Perdices said.
For the full results, click here.