Last spring, the Track and Field season came to a sudden halt in mid-March. Despite the early finish, several California athletes were able to shine on the track by posting some outstanding marks in time trial efforts. Amador Valley junior John Lester, who just committed to Stanford University, rolled to a 1:49.36 800m time on April 15th. Later on, Newbury Park senior Jace Aschbrenner rolled to an 8:44.93.
There have been other impressive time trials and sure enough this past week, a couple of additional efforts were posted to show that athletes are still getting work done.
Amador Valley senior Hope Bergmark has been a North Coast Section individual champion as well as a Mt. SAC sweepstakes individual winner. On August 22nd, Bergmark stepped on the track to record the 2nd fastest 5k track time in the nation according to our database. Her final time of 17:02.33 trails only the 16:53.76 run by Alyssa Hendrix at the University of Tampa Classic.
This past Saturday, Galen Topper and Nolan Topper of Bellarmine took their turn by running a 1600m time trial along with Advait Krishnan of Evergreen Valley and Kevin Andrews of Los Altos. Bellarmine is without a doubt one of the top teams in the nation and along with Newbury Park and Great Oak may be the top three teams in the nation. Last season, the all junior Bellarmine varsity broke the long-standing course record on the Crystal Springs course previously set by the legendary Jesuit team led by the Mastalir twins (Mark and Eric).
Nolan Topper last year along with teammate Colin Peattie both qualified for the Foot Locker National race. He also recorded a best of 9:09.89 as a sophomore at the California State Track and Field final. In the latest MileSplit50 Individual rankings, Topper was ranked #24 with Peattie ahead of him at #13.
This past spring, brother Galen has really stepped up his training and Bellarmine seems to be stronger than last year's podium team. In the time trial documented below, Galen led the way with a 4:13 final time followed by brother Nolan at 4:15. Krishnan and Andrews ran 4:21 and 4:25 respectively.