Senior Sebastian Sawyer has been running cross country for his entire high school career, and is currently ranked as the number one male runner in the Coastal Canyon League. The rankings are based on not just how the runners perform, but also how others perform in comparison to each other.

Sawyer explained the time commitment that comes with being a cross country runner, as well as the individual effort it takes to become a strong competitor.

“[Cross country] takes up a lot of time after school and not living in Oak Park doesn’t help,” Sawyer said. “Because you can only be monitored by coaches so much, it comes down to how much you put in yourself and push yourself.”

Head coach Steve White expressed his pride in Sawyer’s strong work ethic, leadership role and experience on the team.

“Sebby comes out and he works hard every day, he leads by example with his hard work,” White said. “He’s very detail-oriented with his workouts and does what his coaches ask him to do. He is a very smart racer, he’s learned over the years how to gage the competition.”

Senior varsity runner Antonio Andraus explained how Sawyer motivates the team for races and practices.

“He is definitely encouraging in trying to get most of the team to push themselves and work harder so we can be more successful together,” Andraus said.

The cross country team competes in Division 3 and has qualified to enter postseason and has hopes for the team to qualify for state in the 2019 season.

“There are a lot of Division 1 and Division 2 worthy schools that are in [Division 3],” Sawyer said. “[They] could easily compete in D1 or D2 but they are a D3 school, which makes it hard, but I think we’ve got a very good chance of getting to state.”

Andraus elaborated on the difficulties of being in this division.

“Most of the schools we face are pretty hard because they are typically bigger than our school with more students, so they have more of a variety when it comes to runners,” Andraus said.

Coach White talked about what he observes the team dynamic of the racers in how they build each other up.

“The guys work hard for each other,” White said. “They know that there’s goals that each of them have independently, and then the team goal of getting all of us to state.”

This will be Sawyer’s last high school cross country season, but he has an optimistic view towards the remainder of the season.

“It is different, knowing that it’s your last year to do anything changes a lot about how you are going to treat it: the races, the practices, everything,” Sawyer said.