Newbury Park’s Colin Sahlman breaks four minutes in indoor mile performance
Newbury Park High‘s running program is headed for Mt. Rushmore status after senior Colin Sahlman recorded the third-fastest indoor mile time by a high school athlete Saturday in New York.
He finished in 3 minutes, 58.81 seconds at the Dr. Sander Columbia Challenge, becoming only the fourth high school athlete to break four minutes in an indoor mile.
“It’s crazy,” Sahlman said afterward by phone while on a visit to the Nike store in New York City. “I’m enjoying today.”
Bound for Northern Arizona, Sahlman was part of the record-breaking Newbury Park cross-country team in the fall and is now showing what he can do in track and field. He beat a field that included collegians and professional runners, recording a final 200 meters sprint in 27.79 to go from fourth to first.
“I hung with the front pack and had them lead me through,” he said.
His performance was another indication what an extraordinary coach Sean Brosnan has become. Brosnan developed 2020 Gatorade national runner of the year Nico Young and now Sahlman is running faster than Young did in high school.
Rich Gonzalez, who operates the Arcadia Invitational and PrepCalTrack.com, said of the performance, “As if breaking four minutes as a high schooler isn’t mind-boggling enough, doing it in his first ever indoor race, having to do it in a place like New York, and having to beat every pro and collegian in the race to do it just leaves me shell shocked. He’s a great kid too, so it’s awesome for him to experience this. He’s fully deserving of his success.”
Brosnan said the team will return next month to New York to try to break a national indoor relay record and his runners will compete later this month outdoors at a meet at Azusa Pacific.
“It’s amazing,” Brosnan said of Sahlman’s effort.
Southern Section high school sports officials would get a raise based on hours they work as part of an effort to stem a shortage in the Southland.
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