Dameworth Earns Chance to Cool Off

Ask Bryan Dameworth if he accomplished everything he wanted to accomplish this season and you’re likely to get an unexpected answer.

It’s an answer that would make every distance-running coach from Southern California to northeast Maine cringe with visions of leg casts and muscle cramps in their heads.

“I’m going to go skiing,” Dameworth says.

And why not? The Agoura High senior concluded an undefeated season last Saturday with a victory in the Kinney national cross-country championships in San Diego.

With the win, Dameworth became the second Valley-area athlete to win the national title. Eric Reynolds also won the championship as a Camarillo High senior in 1982.

Dameworth’s banner season also included his third consecutive state Division I title--in a state-record 14 minutes, 45 seconds--the Kinney West regional crown and the Southern Section 2-A Division championship.

Also take into consideration his 14:36 clocking on the challenging three-mile course at Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, the second-fastest time ever run on the course used for the Southern Section prelims and finals.

So take a break, Bryan.

“I guess there’s not much I can do except rest and have fun . . . not that running isn’t fun,” said Dameworth, who was timed in 14:49.9 over the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) course at Balboa Park in San Diego Saturday. “I’m going to try and forget everything for a while.”

A week of dodging moguls and outlandishly priced lift tickets in Jackson Hole, Wyo., should help prolong Dameworth’s post-season amnesia.

Agoura Coach Bill Duley, who is also Dameworth’s stepfather, said that some winter fun, paired with a some R & R, would be good for his protege.

“I guess we’ll just sit back and think about the cross-country season for a week or two,” Duley said. “I don’t know if it’s really hit us yet, what he’s done.”

In the national final, Dameworth was hit hard by the presence of Andrew Maris, a White River High (Buckley, Wash.) senior who shadowed him for 2 3/4 miles.

Maris eventually fell off the pace, but only after the West region teammates ran mile and two-mile splits of 4:40 and 9:39. Dameworth eventually stretched to a 50-meter lead at the finish.

“The whole time he was running next to me I was thinking, ‘My God. I beat him so easily in the regionals,’ ” said Dameworth, whose 14:39 mark in the West regional was 20 seconds ahead of runner-up Louie Quintana of Arroyo Grande and 30 seconds in front of Maris, who was sixth in 15:09.

Maris’ early contention surprised Duley, but he had confidence in Dameworth.

“I really didn’t think (Andrew) Maris would give him the test,” he said. “I felt if he ran a good race he’d be tough to beat.”

Dameworth is no stranger to the national championships.

An eighth-place finish in the 1986 West regional made him the first freshman boy ever to qualify for the national meet, where he placed 19th.

Last year, Dameworth earned all-American honors with a fourth-place effort in San Diego.