By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

The greatest boys cross country team in prep history is plotting its course into the 2022 track and field season and one opportunity that has been circled on the calendar is the New Balance Nationals Indoor at The Armory in New York City, March 11-13. 

In particular, the national high school record in the 4xMile relay is in the cross-hairs of senior Colin Sahlman and juniors Leo Young, Lex Young and Aaron Sahlman -- a quartet that swept the top four spots at the California state cross country championships and then all ran under 14:15 for 5,000 meters at the Garmin RunningLane Cross Country Championships in Alabama. 

"We have a 4-by-mile already set," Newbury Park coach Sean Brosnan said in a recent DyeStat Discussion. "We're going to be at The Armory for New Balance Nationals. We're going to try to break the indoor record, by a lot. We're going to go for it."

The record was set and then re-set by the Jungle TC (Loudoun Valley VA) of Virginia in 2018 and 2019 and stands at 17:01.81. That's slightly over 4:15 per leg as an average. 

All four members of Newbury Park's team have run under 4:10 individually. Colin Sahlman, Leo Young and Lex Young finished the cross country season ranked Nos. 1-2-3 in the DyeStat final Top 100 cross country rankings and Aaron Sahlman was No. 8. 

"For indoors, (the record) is a great time, but I think we're going to do some damage if we're all healthy and running," Brosnan said. 

The Jungle TC ran 17:01.82 at the 2018 NBNI when Sam Affolder anchored a lineup that also included Connor Wells, Jacob Hunter and Colton Bogucki. 

Like Newbury Park, Loudoun Valley was coming off a national championship in cross country. 

The following year at New Balance Nationals Indoor, with three members of the team back, it was Hunter digging deep on the final lap to lower the record by .01 seconds. The same weekend, The Jungle also took down the Distance Medley Relay record with 9:54.41. 

New Balance Nationals Indoor will return to The Armory for the first time since 2019 after being canceled the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.