Boys simply dominant

After winning a state championship in Fresno, the third in the program’s history, the Laguna Beach High boys’ cross-country team had another stop to make.

The annual stop back at the In-N-Out burger in Bakersfield was as expected as the Breakers’ state title.

“It’s a Laguna Beach tradition,” Coach Dave Brobeck said. “You forgo fatty foods for months, and once the final race is over we always finish at In-N-Out burgers in Bakersfield. We have our second state championship there, and for a couple of the guys, it was a pretty disgusting display of eating.”

Assistant coach Jacob Griswold and junior Aaron Swartz had maybe the even more impressive accomplishment than the state title. They both ate three 4x4s — a special burger featuring four meat patties and four slices of cheese — with fries and a shake.

But, hours earlier, it was with the same fervor that the Breakers demolished their competition and took the CIF State Cross-Country Division IV title at Fresno’s Woodward Park. They easily outpointed their second-place rival McFarland, 69-122.

Breakers junior Matt Neev finished second individually in Division IV with a time of 15 minutes 44 seconds. He was followed by seniors Blake Hofmeister in fifth (15:55), Andrew Shapero in 11th (16:10) and Tommy Newton-Neal in 16th in 16:23.

With four runners in the top 16, it was easy to see Laguna’s dominance in capturing another state title trophy to match the Breakers’ wins in 1989 and 2004. Senior Sean Pigden finished in 16:44, good for 35th, and fellow seniors Richard Mattingly (46th, 16:58) and Jake Johnson (93rd, 17:42) rounded out the varsity finishers.

“I’d say we were confident,” Shapero said Wednesday, as he and his teammates wore T-shirts that read “State Champions. Laguna cross country.”

“I mean, we made these T-shirts [before the state meet].”

Laguna, which finished fourth in the division a year ago, came in the top-ranked Division IV team in the state. McFarland started fast and led the team race after a mile, but Shapero said that was expected.

“That’s their usual racing strategy,” Shapero said as Hofmeister nodded in agreement.

“Every year they do that,” Hofmeister said.

McFarland also had an advantage because they had run the course two weeks earlier at the CIF Central Section championships. But the Breakers were unfazed, just as when they dominated in winning the CIF Southern Section Division IV title at Mt. San Antonio College.

“We definitely weren’t stressed out,” Newton-Neal said. “It wasn’t like our sophomore year, when we were freaking out.”

Brobeck said after the race that it’s always a bit worrisome, as the final results don’t come in for five or 10 minutes.

“It appeared we had won, but I didn’t know we had won by that large of a margin,” said Brobeck, who was coach of the state champion 2004 team and also ran for the 1989 state champs. “The dominant feeling of this state championship was relief. It was probably the hardest state championship because we were favored. In ’89 and 2004, we weren’t expected to be there. This go-round, it just felt really good, a great punctuation mark to finish a nearly perfect season.”

Neev, who finished second individually, was the only non-senior in the top seven for the Breakers. He said he’ll be looking forward to next year, when he could have a possible rematch against the Division IV individual winner, Tamalpais High junior Daniel Milechman (15:37). But, more than anything, he said he was just happy for the team win.

“A pretty good race,” Neev said. “I mainly just focused on placing for the team. That’s what everyone really wanted, the team title, more than individually.

“We mainly were just focusing on staying calm and not thinking about it too much. Dave wanted us to have the same mentality as when we went into CIF finals. We all knew what we had to do.”