To kick off the second race of the season at the Woodbridge Invitational, the Santiago High School cross-country team implodes with the entire roster’s excellent PR scores.

The most outstanding personal record was the 3-mile school record being broken by Dylan DeLoyola (12). Presented with an opportunity to interview him the following Monday, I took it and asked him on what it means to be on the team and what motivates him to better each day he returns to practice. Dylan Deloyola: {All the guys on the team look up to me! Some way or another. And it feels like I need to be there so they can better themselves. Where I was initially and kind of building myself off of that.} A reminder, he is seeded at the top of the charts for currently having the fastest 3-mile record in the school history. The last XC 2021 – 2022 record is currently in the hands of the UCSD commit Evan Hild with the time of 14:33:9. But with that being said since records are being broken every year, Mr. Deloyola came around and decided to break that year-old record by 3 seconds coming in with the time of 14:30.7. Being able to clinch this record while starting off his senior year of running in high school will definitely become one of his best running career moments.

Also, on the other side, I had a quick moment to catch up with the head coach Ricardo Ethridge on how it feels to be coaching such an iconic team and what type of goals are being set this breathtaking season. Coach E: { The first goal is to win the Big VIII league title. Then moving on to challenging ourselves to win the CIF D1 championship from the boys and girls side this year. While having of course the top 5 male and female runners representing our team at the state meet. Coming in as the top fastest male runner on the team is the school record holder Dylan DeLoyla, then Van Filek (12) kicking butt at Coolbreeze invitation with the time of 14:59.9, and lastly Antonio Almos (11) running 15:12 counting him as the #2 all-time junior. Then representing the top 3 female runners we have Rylee Blade (10) with the #1 all-time record of school history with the time of 16:39.6, then Audrey Buckley (10) only a sophomore climbing the ranks to respectively be ranked having a time of 17:26.4, and closing out the third female runner to be labeled is Kendal Lee (12) having the 7th fastest time in school history holding it down at 17:37.2. } With more to come from this heavily motivated team, this will leave a “Question Mark” on the table of what more records to soon be broken and the huge improvements that will be made from each individual runner on the team.