Boys and Girls Cross Country teams celebrate their victories. Photo courtesy of Ritch Woffinden.
San Luis Obispo High School Cross Country Teams raced at the CIF Central Section Championships on November 19 at Woodward Park in Clovis. For the first time in SLOHS history, both teams won their section titles simultaneously, becoming Central Section Division 3 champions during muddy conditions.
“It went really well, I got to stick with all my teammates, I loved to have that race where we got to have that team unity… I crossed the line with this gut feeling that we had won, so when I actually found we had, I felt fulfilled, like the work I did all season long paid off for the team,” said senior Nico Aebischer.
Girls XC went against 18 other teams from similarly sized schools in the Central Section
The girls team was favored to win in the beginning, scoring 35 points. In Cross Country, each scoring runner scores a point for the place they run. Meaning the first runner scores one point, the runner who places second scores two points, and so on. The winning team has the lowest score. Central East High School, the runners up, scored 76 points.
Senior Molly Berkeland was first for the team, placing third with a five kilometer time of 19:46.31. In total, out of 125 runners, the girls team had four athletes place in the top ten. Junior Kasey Abercromby placed fifth, junior Charlotte Petit placed seventh, and junior Claire Folden placed eighth.
“I think my biggest feeling was relief. I definitely wanted to make sure that we had gotten the win for the second time, because we were kind of guaranteed the win. But it was scary because we knew there was always a chance that something’s going to happen… and a lot of people were sick or injured,” said Abercromby.
Boys XC was not favored to win against the nineteen teams in their race. Del Oro, a high school in Bakersfield, had won the CIF title for the past two years. Del Oro also had a long streak of beating SLO and of winning meets like the Morro Bay Invitational, of which they competed in the large school division.
Reedley, another contender for the CIF title, had beaten SLO in two previous races. Only the top two teams progress to the state meet.
“We were the underdogs to win, and frankly, we were the underdogs to get into the top two. I knew we were capable but that certainly wasn’t certain,” said Boys Cross Country Varsity Head Coach Nancy Steinmaus.
Boys XC ended the race with a score of 55, while Del Oro scored 56 points. SLO won by a singular point and in multiple instances, a less than a second difference between runners would’ve changed the result drastically.
“It was shocking when the race was over and we got second place by two points, and then about five minutes later, finding out we actually got first by one point was an amazing transformation,” said Steinmaus.
Senior Ethan Feeser was the first SLO athlete, placing fourth with a 5k time of 15:58.69. Senior Nico Aebischer also placed in the top ten, placing eighth out of 135 runners.
“The last mile I just looked up and saw my team in front of me and thought this was gonna be my last race even though it wasn’t. I just really started putting in a lot of effort and I don’t really remember the last four hundred meters because I went into a flow state,” said Aebischer.
Both teams had to race in muddy conditions. The boys race started while rain was still falling on the course. This resulted in slick conditions and numerous falls.
This also marks the first time in SLOHS history that both Boys and Girls XC have won CIF at the same time. This is also the second consecutive CIF title for the Girls team.
The girls team had also won their league title for the fifth consecutive time.
“[Winning league] was really exciting. It’s encouraging to know that we only had one senior on that team that did that and that we have really good potential for next year and the coming years,” said Abercromby.
The boys team had also finished a championship sweep winning the County Championship race for the fifth consecutive time, League for the seventh consecutive year, and now CIF.
“This has been an amazing season… we were absolutely coming into the County Meet the underdogs. We’ve been beaten by AG every time we met them thus far… but we trained for the championship part of the season, so when that county meet came, we won easily. And the same thing with league,” said Steinmaus.
The CIF victories also meant both teams qualified for the CIF State Championship race on November 29, also at Woodward Park.
Both teams went against other CIF victors from other sections, and individual qualifiers from all across the state. Because California is the largest state in the country, the California State Championship meet is one of the most competitive races in the country, and likely the most competitive officially school sanctioned meet.
The girls team placed nineteenth in their race, and the boys team placed seventeenth.
SLOHS’ Cross Country teams have now officially ended their season. Many are hopeful to continue their legacies in following years. Some of these athletes are also competing in Track & Field, which has its first meet at Liberty on February 19, 2026.
Athletes have already begun pre-season training and some are even competing individually this winter during the indoor Track & Field season.
