Home Care In Newbury Park, CA

After facing Ron Wilford’s defense all week, Brady Smigiel can empathize with opposing offenses.

“I see it every day at practice,” the Newbury Park High quarterback said. “That’s why I’m figuring out how to read defenses so much, because I have to work with Wilford’s defense every day, struggling … it’s still a struggle.”

With its defensive coordinator back on the home sideline at Moorpark High, where Wilford made his name as one of Ventura County’s top defensive coaches, Newbury Park shut out Bakersfield-Centennial, 25-0, Saturday night to win the California Classic.

The performance was helped by a few breaks. Centennial had a pair of touchdowns called back by penalty.

“It worked out,” Wilford said. “After (giving up) 49 last week, we were OK with that.”

The improvement was significant after last week’s hectic 59-49 win over Santa Clarita-Golden Valley.

“Our defense really stepped up big,” said safety Shane Rosenthal, who had an interception negated by a penalty flag. “We gave up 49 points last week. We really took that personal. … We did what we needed to do. We’re 2-0. It’s only the start of our journey.”

Smigiel completed 22 of 27 passes for 203 yards and three touchdowns, Rosenthal caught 10 passes for 71 yards and a score and running backs Cody Wirz and Noah McArthur combined to rush for 78 yards on 14 carries to lead the Panthers offense.

More:Check out the scores from Week 1 of the high school football season

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After an 8-3 season a year ago and a season-opening 35-13 win over Visalia-Redwood in Week Zero, Centennial (1-1) poised a good test for the Panthers.

“You see they have some good players, they’re well-coached, they get after you,” Newbury Park head coach Joe Smigiel said. “We have a target on our backs. We’re all over the internet. We’re over social media. We’re all over the papers. And we’re really not very good. But the thing is, we play together and we believe in each other … so we’re on our way.”

After tying the Ventura County record for TD passes in a game last week, Smigiel started well against a tougher defense.

He completed all five passes as Newbury Park took the opening kickoff and drove 55 yards in 10 plays, taking a 6-0 lead on a 1-yard run by sophomore Balen Bethencourt.

Rosenthal reeled in a ridiculous, one-handed catch off a deflection to double the Newbury Park lead with an 11-yard TD reception with 10:54 left in the second quarter.

Centennial drove the ball using running back Angel Lozano, who ran for 141 yards on 22 carries and had an 84-yard TD run nullified by a holding flag.

It drove 64 yards on 17 plays, taking nearly 10 minutes off the clock — nearly the entire second quarter — but Newbury Park halted the march with a fourth-and-2 stop on the 9.

More:JJ Bittner, Rio Mesa outlast rival Camarillo in big night for both offenses

More:Dominant defense leads Thousand Oaks to shutout of Ventura for Lancers' first win

There was just 1:07 left in the half, but Smigiel needed just 59 seconds to capitalize. The quarterback raced the Panthers 91 yards in eight plays, hitting Landon Bell for a 25-yard TD pass with eight seconds left in the half.

With a timeout to spare.

“That was sweet,” former Newbury Park great Keith Smith exclaimed on the Panthers sideline.

Centennial had scoring chances end on the Newbury Park 8-, 11-, and 28-yard lines in the second half.

Wilford’s defense responded with a fourth-and-goal sack by Tasman Cassell and a strip sack by Noah McArthur.

Smigiel completed his day with a 3-yard TD pass to Talon Gold to cap an 11-play, 82-yard scoring drive with 2:41 left.

After gathering his team behind an end zone, Joe Smigiel congratulated his team on the effort, telling them “We’re on the way to a good thing.”

Joe Curley covers high school, collegiate and professional football for the Star. He can be reached at [email protected]. For more coverage, follow @vcspreps on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

It's time to get fired up for cross country! In our final installment of the 30 Teams To Watch preview series, we saved the best for last. As always, if you catch an error or have updated information for us, email CA state editor Jeffrey Parenti ([email protected]) and we'll make the corrections.

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This article has been updated throughout from the initial posting.

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Despite the graduation of national runner of the year Colin Sahlman (1954), the Newbury Park boys cross country team remains loaded for defense of its national title led by seniors Lex Young (far left), Leo Young (1956), and Aaron Sahlman (far right). (DeAnna Turner photo)

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One cannot go into the 2022 cross country season without mentioning the boys of Newbury Park! Over the last several years, the Panthers program has upped the bar beyond what anybody ever thought was imaginable for a prep cross country team. Little did any of us understand that their 2019 national championship squad was simply the beginning of their assault on all record books!

In 2019, Newbury Park established a state record for the Woodward Park 5,000-meter State Meet course in running an astounding 75:28 (15:06 avg.). But, despite a year away from the course during the interrupted 2020 COVID season, the NP crew absolutely unleashed in 2021, capturing another State title but also erupting to a 73:25 team time. Yep... they averaged 14:41 per scorer!

To put that in greater perspective, only seven boys in California history have run that course that fast, let alone, a team of five averaging such a previously unthinkable time.

Here we are staring at the 2022 season and Newbury Park returns three of the most talented cross country runners in California history.

But the Panthers program moves into this fall season without two four-year mainstays -- Colin Sahlman, the national runner of the year, and Daniel Appleford, a consistent scorer -- and head coach Sean Brosnan.

Brosnan left the high school coaching ranks to take over the distance program at UCLA. He leaves the Panthers program to his wife, Tanya Brosnan (pending school approval) and assistant coach Steve Hawkins.

As for the team ...

With both recently committing to attend Stanford in 2023, Leo Young rolled to the third-fastest time ever on the Woodward Park course (14:28.0) while twin brother, Lex Young crossed with the fifth-fastest time at 14:30.3. Lex, comes off a track season that saw him establish a new junior class state record (8:35.72) for 3200 meters. Meanwhile, Leo set the junior-class state record for the 1600 meters (3:59.32) en route to his 4:00.77 for the mile!

Meanwhile, fellow senior, Aaron Sahlman also returns. Colin's younger brother was the Panthers fourth scorer in their triumphant state title run with his 14:46.4. In 2019, alum Jace Aschbrenner ran 14:53.7 as the fastest second scorer ever in State Meet history. Aaron Sahlman ran more than seven seconds faster and was their fourth in 2021! He comes in off a monster track season that saw him run 1:48.91 for the 800 meters and a 4:01.34 for the mile!

As their sixth scorer in 2021 (15:15.1), Hector Martinez has been fighting injuries since the spring and may return at some point this season. Also, watch for Dev Doshi. As a sophomore, he crossed at 15:40.6 at the California State Meet but a week later, checked in with an outstanding 14:59.6 effort at the Garmin RunningLane National Championships. The incoming junior improved down to a 9:02.27 for the 3200 meters this past Spring.

And, if that were not depth enough, Newbury Park welcomes the addition of senior Brayden Seymour, one of the top distance runners in Florida. Seymour -- who confirmed the transfer, as did Tanya Brosnan -- is coming off a junior track season that saw him run 4:11.07 for the mile and 8:59.72 for 3200 meters, Seymour is a game-changer that places this group with the Panthers lineup of 2021! At Hagerty High -- located in Oviedo, Fla., a northeast suburb of Orlando -- Seymour ran a 15:38.5 for 5K to place third at the Florida 4A State Championships in 2021.

Reflecting back to the 2022 track season, no team in the nation could touch what Newbury Park achieved in the 1600 meters or the 3200 meters. Converting the mile to the 1600 meters, they saw four boys run under 4:00! Three of those boys return and now you add a sub-4:10 into the mix!

For those returning, the 3200-meter personal bests are staggering. You simply cannot compare it to any other prep group as with Seymour added in, the returning five boys that averaged 8:49.11 this past spring.

With the news of Newbury Park moving to Division 2 -- making lots of D-1 coaches nod with approval -- the Panthers are the hands-down favorite for another state championship.

While also heavily favored as the best team in the United States, they will hold back through September, focusing on another historic run with warranted expectations of another national title!

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2021 Returning Times for 5000 Meters

2021 Returning Times for 3 Miles

In both charts, the ranking is against all returning boys in CA.

(These charts are pulled from the XC Team Scores, a MileSplit database function accessible under the Rankings header.)

* Newbury Park's Leo Young holds his medal after the Panthers won the CIF Division I State Championships on Saturday at Woodward Park

Photo Credit: Dan Tyree/California MileSplit

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There has been a lot of conversation lately about Newbury Park -- and rightfully so.

Since the Woodbridge Classic in September, when the Panthers unleashed a performance that's never been seen before -- four runners under 14 minutes for three miles and a total team average under 14 minutes -- Newbury Park has been at the forefront of the high school distance running scene.

This has prompted a lot of talk about records and history and ultimately, the legacy this team is leaving behind.

Head coach Sean Brosnan has been the face of the squad's unbridled success, though if you were to ask him, he'd surely hand off those accolades to his runners, a list that includes Colin Sahlman, Aaron Sahlman, Lex Young, Leo Young, Daniel Appleford, Hector Martinez and Dev Doshi.

Now, what's fascinating in all of this is that the Panthers only have two seniors: Colin Sahlman and Appleford.

The rest of the unit will be back.

For most high school programs, it would be hard to guarantee success year over year, because in theory a litany of things could happen: Athletes transfer out, injuries happen, fitness changes and improvements or regression could vastly change a runner's fortune. Your 10th guy might become your best. Your first guy might become your fifth.

But that's with most high school programs. You wouldn't imagine anyone stepping into this team and becoming the No. 1 without Brosnan knowing about it. Or that anyone would drop that much over a summer.

And in that way, Newbury Park, the current MileSplit50 No. 1 team which is headed to the RunningLane Cross Country Championships on Dec. 4 in Huntsville, Alabama, almost mirrors a college program. You have to put in the work to build up to that top seven. Even in 2018, when Newbury Park won its first CIF Division 2 state title with Nico Young leading the way, Brosnan brought a vibe that hadn't been seen before.

Then the team won its second CIF Division 2 title in 2019. And then it claimed Team Nationals that same year. The pandemic only strengthened this team's desire to become something special. Newbury Park traveled to Indiana in November of last year and won the NSAF Meet of Champions. It was part of two races that had national appeal.

How has this even been possible? Brosnan has created a culture of belief -- in running -- at Newbury Park. It has been part science, part game theory, part learning how to hurt. Those within the program have invested time and patience and effort.

Now, here's where we get into the question of what matters.

Is it the fact that every member of the squad is running as a unit and combining for 16 points at the CIF Division I State Championship meet, the biggest classification in California? That result was just insane. No team in history -- in California or otherwise -- has ever had that gap strength in one of the best state meets in the country. No national team performance has ever paralleled that, either.

WATCH LIVE ON MILESPLIT:

The action will be streamed via a cart cam, with select shots around the course and the finish line.

RUNNINGLANE CROSS COUNTRY CHAMPIONSHIPS ON DEC. 4

Or how about this? Is it the fact that Brosnan has somehow created four runners capable of winning a national championship? And with national championships comes aptitude: You have to have a runner that's capable of the time consistent with that performance. Newbury Park has four of those.

And so, it's probably a combination of both of those things.

While times will change course to course, value is a matter of perspective. There's value in both team strength and overall talent. There's obvious value in having a team that can compete on any given day, at any given course, and be the best four runners on that day.

But you also can't discount the willpower and dedication it took to get to that level of running. Sometimes, you have to appreciate just how fast a team is going.

The performances between the team's top four, and then its fifth and sixth, largely don't change however big or competitive the meet gets.

Looking at the team's averages across its four biggest meets, the team has compiled performances within 14 seconds of one another, across several months.

When we incorporate speed ratings into the equation, Newbury Park is also far and away the best team in the country.

If you're unfamiliar, speed ratings project a rating for a performance regardless of the time run. It's an indication of how valuable or quantitative the effort was, regardless of where it was run or who it was run against.

In other words, speed ratings can be seen as an objective metric.

While 2021 has been a rather incredible year, with six teams over 180 averages before the RunningLane Cross Country Championships on Dec. 4 in Huntsville, Newbury Park is the only program over 190. In fact, the Panthers have hit 190 on three occasions.

Still, we're talking all-time.

How about average?

When we look at cross country programs, through and through, we always come back to average.

A team's average can indicate overall speed, impact and performance.

A team's average can give you an idea of just how good that team was in a given year.

But a team's average won't always lead to a win -- primary case: Brentwood (TN) had the fastest average in 2016 but was second at Great American where it recorded that number.

Since 2010, in fact, only five times has the nation's fastest team won the national title that year -- we included American Fork's 2021 team, as it split national meets that year with Newbury Park.

Last year, American Fork ran the fastest average ever recorded at the RunningLane National Cross Country Championships.

The Cavemen claimed the overall win with an average of 15:00, defeating Niwot (15:03), Mountain Vista (15:07) and Skyridge (15:03).

Saying all that, we turn to this year.

While Newbury Park's average does not wholly explain its success in 2021, the team's performances have certainly helped the cause. Because few teams are even in the same wheelhouse right now.

Few teams and their benches can even keep up.

In October the Panthers crushed both of those all-time marks, claiming an insane average of 14:43 at the Clovis Invitational.

Then, this past Saturday Newbury Park lowered that mark to 14:40.

The Panthers are now a full 16 seconds faster than any team in history.

I wanted to get a sense of just how fast teams have been over the recent decade, so I dived into the numbers. Here is a list of the fastest averages per year dating back to 2010.

These averages are all based on real-time meets within those given years.

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2022 CROSS COUNTRY

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This wasn't the plan.

But the whirlwind courting and signing of national championship coach Sean Brosnan by UCLA in early August left high school distance powerhouse Newbury Park without the coach who had led them to national prominence.

The plan was for a summer spent training in Big Bear, a slow rollout to the fall cross country season ramping up in October and again in the second half of November culminating atop a podium in Portland the first Saturday of December.

"It happened really quick," Tanya Brosnan said of the college job offer for her husband. "When it came along, he couldn't pass it up."

But that left the Panthers program -- one with three of the nation's top returning boys in seniors Leo and Lex Young, and Aaron Sahlman, not to mention stratospheric expectations -- without its spiky-haired crazy-like-a-fox architect.

Enter Tanya Brosnan and Steve Hawkins. The former, a hall-of-fame collegiate runner, had been an assistant to her husband for six seasons. The latter, a former college coach, had been helping the Panthers program for three.

They assume the team with a not-so-simple task of maintaining continuity of a program whose boys won Southern Section, CIF-State, and Garmin RunningLane National titles last fall, and whose girls won Southern Section, ran second at CIF-State, and placed among the top 10 at RunningLane.

"We just plan to keep everyone on the same trajectory, keep this team on top," Tanya Brosnan said before a practice in mid-August. "I was with (Sean) every step of the way leading up to it for the past six years. I know what we're doing. We've got a good program here, a really good environment and a really good team. So, I'm really excited to see what we can do this year."

Brosnan, the former Tanya Zeferjahn, with roots in Southern California, has been inducted into the athletic Halls of Fame at both Cal State San Bernardino, and Queens University of Charlotte, NC, where she was a two-time Division II 10K champion, and still holds school records in the mile (4:53.33) and 3000 meters (9:22.95). She was a four-time USTFCCCA All-American at Queens while getting her MBA.

Her day job is as an engineering geologist for State of California Department of Toxic Substances Control. She said the main role of her department "is cleaning up hazardous waste sites in SoCal." Which is quite the contrast to polishing the glistening pearl that is the Newbury Park distance program.

"Expectations are just as high, if not higher," she said when discussing the boys team. "They can do great things."

As for the girls ...

"We have a great team this year," she said. "I'm really excited. We have three 4:50 girls and the next two are around 5:05-5 flat. ... If we keep everyone healthy and do the training right, they're definitely a state championship team, no question."

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Steve Hawkins is a longtime professor of exercise science currently teaching at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. He is a former coach at Allen Community College in Kansas. With two daughters on the Newbury Park team, he said he volunteered to help three seasons ago.

After graduating from Newbury park, Fiona Hawkins has earned Division II All-American recognition at Adams State University in Colorado. Ailish Hawkins, a rising senior, is the Panthers' top returning runner.

In defining his role as an assistant coach, Steve Hawkins jokes that he is a "bus driver with a stopwatch."

He said he is an "extra hand at practice" with a focus on "making sure the young kids get feedback everyday."

While the news came quickly of Sean Brosnan's departure for UCLA, Hawkins said he wasn't surprised.

"I've known for several years that he was going to have opportunities," Hawkins said. " ... It became evident that he had the ability to really drive programs to really high heights.

"I knew he'd get an opportunity. I hoped it wouldn't come this year. And I say that selfishly only because it affected Ailish and the kids. But it was always going to affect some kids. Somebody was going to be that first class to have him leave.

"The value of it happening now is that we have this strong group of seniors that can maintain the culture that is such a key part of what we do here, what's been done here, and teach it to those younger kids. And hopefully it will keep going."

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Cross Country Athletes: Claim Your MileSplit Profile Today!

Coaches: Check Out MileSplit Live!

Jeffrey Parenti is the California State Editor for MileSplit

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A historic season for Newbury Park (CA) High School seniors Nico Young and Jace Aschbrenner is almost complete.

This weekend, Aschbrenner, a University of Colorado signee, will look to end his season with one final time trial at 3,200 meters ... with a little pacing help from Young, who still has a few more weeks left before shutting it down completely.

"Most of my kids I'm not worrying about," Newbury Park coach Sean Brosnan said, "They're putting in mileage. My top kids, they are definitely going after it."

Perhaps the only stumbling block at this point, Brosnan said recently, is finding a track that is open to the public and would be accesible and safe for all those involved. As it stands now, he said, Los Angeles County is still under heavy caution with coronavirus measures, though Ventura County, which is just northwest of LA and where Newbury Park resides, has eased up restrictions just slightly.

Newbury Park's track, which is closed off to the public, isn't available for use.

So those two counties are where Brosnan, Aschbrenner and Young will look to find an appropriate destination for the final performance from the future Buffs runner. Recent weeks has seen the trio -- training with Brosnan's track club, mind you, and not with Newbury Park -- traveling as far as two hours to find open tracks to work out on.

"That's the way we have to do it now," Brosnan said. "The kids are dedicated. They have class for a few hoursa and then they spend the time and drive and put the work in."

With the CIF over and "summer rules" in effect, Brosnan's athletes have continued to train for the club and are readying for the team's annual get-together at Big Bear in June.

This weekend will be the culmination of a historic year for Aschbrenner, and so the time trial will be fitting -- if somewhat unpredictable -- end following the cancellation of the CIF outdoor season

With Young pacing through seven laps, Aschbrenner hopes to break 9 minutes for 3,200m and approach 8:50, a time that would knock 15 seconds off his personal record. The California teen will then shut down his season in anticipation of his coming season with Colorado under coach Mark Wetmore.

And ultimately it will close one half of the books on one of the country's best tandem's in recent memory. Newbury Park had two runners who were constantly scoring 1-2 in one of the most competitive states in the country and the pair ultimately gave their program a chance to secure its first national title in school history.

On any other team, Aschbrenner would have been a No. 1, with a 3-mile PR of 14:04.80 and a 5K best of 14:53.70 -- that performance finishing him as a CIF Division II runner-up. Aschbrenner would go on to become an All-American at NXN as well, finishing 18th. On the track, he sported PRs of 4:24.26 in the 1,60m, 8:24.23 in the 3K and 9:05.55 in the 3,200m.

"We want to leave him on a high note," Brosnan said of Aschbrenner.

Young, meanwhile, is targeting a late May or early June attempt at the 5K. He has aspirations of beating Galen Rupp's national record of 13:37.

Plans are still tentative, Brosnan said, but the hope is to gain a professional pacer through 3K and set Young up for a time in the 13:30s. Two other races are likely to be in the field. Like the high school mile that is taking place this weekend in California, Brosnan would like to make sure Young's final attempt as a high schooler is official and could go down in the record books.

Young was asked recently to compete in that high school-only mile field, though his schedule, and his pacing plans with Aschbrenner, were already set for the same weekend.

Brosnan knows getting the appropriate settings in place will be difficult. Beyond just finding a track and a timer and an official, there's also that tough ask: Who can take Young through 3,200m at 65 seconds lap, roughly equating to 8:40 pace?

"His fitness is still good," Brosnan said. "He's doing everything and all the little things are amazing."

The storybook season is not completely over, which is almost fitting considering the year Young has had, but what else would you expect, one of the country's best talents of all-time going after a nearly impossible record and making sure it's in his grasp by season's end.