For All That’s Happened Since 2019, Including The Subtraction Of Nico Young, Colin Sahlman and Sean Brosnan, Newbury Park Has A Chance To Break The All-Time Low Score At NXN
By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor
PORTLAND — The best high school cross country team in history graduated the National Gatorade Athlete of the Year and soon after its charismatic head coach departed to accept a college job offer.
And yet, the Newbury Park managed to navigate another flawless fall season and will enter Saturday’s Nike Cross Nationals as a heavy favorite — not only to win, but to break the record-low score of 77 points by Purcellville (Loudoun Valley VA) in 2018.
When coach Sean Brosnan, the architect of the Newbury Park program, left in August to take the UCLA assistant coaching job, the task of continuing NP’s storybook ride fell to assistant coaches Tanya Brosnan, Sean’s wife, and Steve Hawkins.
“It’s definitely a little bit different without Sean there,” Tanya Brosnan said. “I mean his personality, and not being there every day. It’s like a little piece of the team is missing.”
Big pieces have moved on before, from the graduation of Nico Young in 2020 and Colin Sahlman in 2022.
Class of 2023 standouts Lex and Leo Young and Aaron Sahlman are one of the greastest trios to ever lace up spikes for the same high school team. Transfer Brayden Seymour’s arrival from Florida over the summer bolstered the lineup. And Dev Doshi showed significant improvement, rounding out an all-star cast of scorers.
This year’s Newbury Park team has waited three years for a chance to defend its Nike Cross Nationals crown and the first step was Friday’s course run-through at Glendoveer Golf Course.
NXN is a long-awaited culminating event for the Young twins, and Aaron Sahlman, who have been running together for nine years.
“Really, its all about the teamwork and the camaraderie between us,” Leo Young said after Newbury Park’s victory two weeks ago at the CIF Southern Section D2 finals. “We attack practice every day with an attitude of working together and trying to enjoy it.”
For the past three years, no high school runners — and very few track athletes of any level — exhibited the same influence as the Young twins on the running community.
Their L&L YouTube channel, alone, has 34.7k subscribers. Their combined following on Instagram is more than 75,000.
As much as they have enjoyed the process and success over the past four years, the Youngs…
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