Newbury Park - is it the coach or the kids?

Could also be that he has great teammates to train with and race with.

The reason why they were not ranked top 10 in the state is that I don’t think the rankers took the following runners in consideration:

-Morgan Nygren, who was out for the 2020 season due to health issues

-Tiffany Sax - she was an incoming freshmen so I don’t think the rankers have ever heard of her

-Lexi Darley - who transferred from another school but I don’t think they rankers knew she was going to NP.

So that’s 3 runners in their top 5.

-Samantha Spaulding - she hasn’t really done much of high school CC before and I think she transferred from elsewhere.

Without those 4, the team would have only McDonnell, Hawkins, and Brotcke. Other than that, there wouldn’t be enough depth for this team to be a top 10 team in the state.

But those 7 merged into one team and formed into the Magnificent 7.

There are many schools whose both boys and girls team were in the top 10 regularly. FM. They actually won both boys and girls NXN in 2014. Boys won in 2005 and girls got second. Great Oak had many years where both their boys and girls teams made top 10. Loudoun Valley did in 2019. American Fork in 2015. Wayzata in 2014.

4 years

Another reason why the 2021 freshman class didn’t do as well as the 2019 frosh class is that Jack Watson was the only runner from that group who ran decent decent times in 8th grade. I think he’s the only one in that group who ever ran before going to Newbury Park.

I guarantee that the 2022 freshman class will be so much better.

Southlake Carroll had 2 guys go from a 19 min 5K freshman year to a low 15 minute 5K senior year.

a good coach for sure can squeeze 30 to 60 seconds or more compared to a bad coach. but most of these gains are coming from puberty

Oh and Reed Brown ran in the 17s freshman year and a 14:41 senior year. Jacob Pickle from SLC ran in the 18s freshman year and a sub-15 senior year. So it’s quite possible to coach someone from 17s to 14s

You might wanna look at their 8th grade times.

C/O 2023:

Lex Young - 4:45 1600 / 10:09 3200

Leo Young - 4:55 1600 / 10:37 3200

Aaron Sahlman - 4:46 1600 / 10:44 3200

Hector Martinez - 4:26 1500 / 9:40 3k

Aaron Cantu - 4:27 1500 / 9:48 3k

C/O 2025:

Jack Watson - 5:04 1600

Noah Ingersoll - cannot find anything from before 9th grade

Tristan Kanner - 5:47 1600

Jeremy Rowell - cannot find anything from before 9th grade

Josiah Stillman - 1:14 400. Cannot find any longer distance results from him.

You can see a correlation here. The freshman class in 2019 was so much better because they were a lot faster in 8th grade than c/o 2025 was.

Also note that Martinez did not go to Newbury Park until 2020. So you may possibly see someone in the class of 2025 transfer in in the near future.

So far, Brosnan has had a window, and these happen, he has 6 including Nico, and Alpple whatever, that were not just good but great. I believe it is also a 3, 000 kid HS. These existed back in the day, I had 2000 kids in 3 grades. No One was great( The best guy ran 8:46 ultimately). I do not know if they were all In District originally. Let's presume so. I give him that credit. it is much harder to take that many guys to that level of success and those times than many think. , is it harder than a Ridge HS or a Morris Hills to run 7:32.x (Ridge)or 7:31.60 (MH)at Penn in a HS of 900? Probably. The times they have run are kind of nuts. Can he do it without three brothers who were gifted, and another two absurdly gifted? I do not know. York, used to be the standard, Then America Fork..I think Don Sage ran ran 4:02.x 8:45 when that was good, Marius Bakken? Pretty good. Lukecik and his crew? ran really well. Raszco had one window with Webb, Richard Smith)

Check out this article.

nytimes.com

‘Magic Could Happen’

By Scott Cacciola

The star milers of Newbury Park High School are getting a crash course in celebrity as they seek to crush a record. Catch them if you can. (You can’t.)

Link:www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/sports/newb...

Coach gave 2017 grad Ethan Duffy a lot of credit for getting the program to where it is now, although he would barely make their top 7 this fall.

Well, it was one sentence.

Did Brosnan ever receive a penny for his own running? Free sun glasses does not count as running professionally.

TBH if your question is "coach or the kids" then you shouldn't be cherry picking only the freshmen times. They have only had 1 season with the coach.

You should be looking at each kids improvement from freshman to senior year over the last 4 years. That stat would show you whether it's the coach or kids.

Yes.

If Newbury Park consisted of guys that only live in that district and no one transferred in, their top 5 would look like:

Dan Appleford

Dev Doshi

Zaki Blunt

Oliver Windham-Hughes

Jack Watson

With those guys This team probably would have gotten last in the gold race, or maybe they would have gotten into the lower race during the selection process

Having sub 15 minute Freshmen indicates they were massively talented coming in. Kids all somewhat progress the same, but if you start with sub 15 minute kids, it's much easier to create sub 14 minute kids. Sub 17 minute kids might progress to sub 16 or even sub 15 minute kids, but have VERY little change of turning into sub 14 minute kids. That 2019 Freshman class is absolutely bonkers and would make any coach look like a genius.

If the coach should get credit for a Freshman running 14:37, shouldn't they also get credit or blame for the top Freshman in '21 only running 16:27?

Another takeaway from the past 3 years is that you don’t need 5 varsity seniors to be the best team in the country. In 2019, 2020 and 2021 there were only 2 seniors on NP’s varsity. In 2018 there were also 2 seniors and they still got 6th at nats.

I think the major take away is that it doesn’t matter what grade the Youngs and Sahlmans are in, they are complete studs and you can win with them on your team at any time. A couple really good fill in the blanks kids are nice to have, but if you have 3 or 4 Youngs and Sahlmans, you’re likely winning everything.

You are right.

2018 - 1 Sahlman and 1 Young. 6th place
2019 - 1 Sahlman and 2 Youngs. Nat. champs
2020/2021 - 2 Sahlmen and 2 Youngs. Nat. Champions

2022- 1 Sahlman / 2 Youngs. Predicted Nat. Champs

Why you gotta be ripping on 14 or 15 year olds like that, especially since some of them never even ran before?