Daily Pilot Girls’ Cross-Country Dream Team: Huntington Beach’s Sydney Rubio grabbed league crown in comeback year
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When Sydney Rubio arrived at Huntington Beach for her freshman year of high school, she decided to try something new by joining the cross-country team.
Distance running came naturally to Rubio, her times improving week after week, until her performance finally demanded attention on a larger scale.
Rubio concluded her freshman season in scorching fashion, a third-place finish in the CIF State Division I final, earning a surprise bid into the Nike Cross Nationals.
Injuries and setbacks limited Rubio to just one race as a sophomore. Her return to form would be a boost to any lineup, and so it was for the Oilers this fall.
“Freshman year, I’d never run before, like, at all,” Rubio said. “Whenever I would run, I would just see the time, and it’d be really fast. I’m just trying to get back in shape because I’ve kind of been hurt a lot the last two years. I’ve had, like, stress fractures and knee problems, but I’m getting back to [my] times. It helps me know that I can run those times because I’ve done it before.”
Huntington Beach secured the Sunset League girls’ cross-country title in dominant fashion, 28-68, over Los Alamitos, with Rubio leading a group of three Oilers up front that also included sophomore Rebecca VanPeteghen and senior Emma Siok.
Rubio, who fondly recalls making the Nike Cross Nationals as her favorite athletic moment, checked another box with her first individual league crown.
“That made me happy because the whole season, I was still trying to get back to my times,” Rubio said. “Winning league, it just made me happy. I’d been trying to do that for a while, since I didn’t do it the other years.”
Huntington Beach’s most recent league champion before that had been Makenzie McRae, now competing at Northern Arizona University. McRae, who won the Surf League crown in 2022, was still on the team when Rubio was a freshman.
“Running with Makenzie in freshman year is what made me fast, I think, because I would always want to be first,” Rubio added. “I’d be like, ‘I have to stay with her.’ She definitely helped me get a lot faster.”
People in the program have marveled at the competing interests that Rubio has been able to handle. She plays flag football, enjoys surfing, and up until recently, she had been part of the cheerleading squad. She was involved in gymnastics growing up, and she has also tried rugby.
Huntington Beach coach Kareen Shackelford said the number of activities and sports the team was involved in required more “flexibility and grace,” rather than an “all-or-nothing” approach.
If the theme of a decorated freshman year was discovering untapped potential, Shackelford has now seen a toughness and a will to win from the team’s junior ace.
“We had such a small team, and they are all pulled in so many directions,” Shackelford said. “We didn’t even really field a full team until we got to league finals, and Syd was already a little bit getting worse for the wear, her stress reaction was starting to rear its head.”
As the margin of victory in the league finals meet indicated, the Oilers were confident they could qualify for CIF without a marquee race from Rubio. She wanted to win regardless.
“She heard that, and she said, ‘I still want to win,’” Shackelford said. “Then we’re like, ‘OK, Bex [VanPeteghen], what do you want to do?’ She’s like, ‘I’m going to try to keep up.’ That was pretty cool, this kind of infectious [team environment].”
Rubio, the Daily Pilot Girls’ Cross-Country Dream Team Athlete of the Year, authored a season-best time of 16 minutes 45.2 seconds in placing seventh in the girls’ sweepstakes race of the Orange County championships at Oak Canyon Park. It was the only sub-17-minute time turned in by a local girls’ cross-country runner this season.
While further physical ailments derailed Rubio in the CIF Southern Section postseason, it was certainly a comeback year. After VanPeteghen punctuated her breakout campaign by making the state meet as an individual, Rubio was still trying to keep up with her teammate during her training — with the assistance of an electric skateboard.
“It’s fully a skateboard, and it just has big wheels,” Rubio said. “We have the off-roading ones, and then I just hold a remote in my hand, and it moves. … There’s a little motor in the back, and then I have a remote. The day I rode it with Bex, we did like the most off-roading trail we could do. We would go through all the dirt and up the [hills] and stuff. It was really fun.”
COACH OF THE YEAR
Steve Lalim
Laguna Beach
Lalim led Laguna Beach to the state meet, the ninth time he has taken the Breakers to that stage since taking on the head coaching duties in 2008. His squad was the only one in the area — boys or girls — to advance to state as a team this fall. Laguna Beach also won the Pacific Hills League title, the program’s 14th league championship during his tenure. Late-season adversity included a weight room injury to senior Hayden Joseph that required a week off from running during the CIF preliminaries. The Breakers also raced with two alternates, due to illness, during the CIF finals. “I’m really impressed with the character of the girls on the team for overcoming so much,” said Lalim, adding that the team was “really close,” making the entire season “special.”
FIRST TEAM
Teagan Bradshaw
Fountain Valley | So.
Bradshaw assumed a leading role in the Barons’ lineup this season, providing a handful of top-10 finishes in proving she was up to the challenge. It began with Fountain Valley’s host meet in the Central Park Invitational, where she placed seventh in 18:57.6. She set a new personal record two weeks later in the medium schools race of the Orange County championships, finishing fourth in 18:22.1. She added a fourth-place showing in the Sunset League finals, punching her ticket into CIF via an at-large berth.
Lila Glidewell
Pacifica Christian | Sr.
Glidewell’s final cross-country season as a Triton concluded as the rest had — at Woodward Park for the state meet. This was the first of those three appearances in which she went up to Fresno as an individual. She certainly earned it, breaking 18 minutes for the first time in placing third (17:58.5) in the CIF Division 5 final. Glidewell also placed second in the San Joaquin League finals, adding top-10 finishes in the small schools races of the ASICS Cool Breeze Invitational (fifth) and the Orange County championships (seventh).
Hayden Joseph
Laguna Beach | Sr.
A four-year varsity runner for the Breakers, Joseph was a part of two state-qualifying teams. After missing the cut last season, Laguna Beach placed fifth in the CIF Division 4 final to return to Fresno’s Woodward Park, where the Breakers placed 13th out of 25 teams in the Division IV final. Joseph, who began her career in the Wave League as part of the Sunset Conference, came up with her best finish in a league finals meet. She clocked in with a seasonal-best 18:10.5 as the runner-up in the Pacific Hills League finals, behind teammate Grace Wagener, a freshman standout.
Emma Siok
Huntington Beach | Sr.
Huntington Beach put on a display of dominance in the Sunset League finals, claiming the top three finishing positions in the seven-team competition. Siok, a four-year varsity runner, rounded out the triumphant trio, filing in behind teammates Sydney Rubio and Rebecca VanPeteghen. She established personal records in the 3-mile and 5K distances, achieving those times in the Dana Hills Invitational (17:21.5) and in the Nike Hole in the Wall Invitational (19:31.3) in Lakewood, Wash., respectively.
Rebecca VanPeteghen
Huntington Beach | So.
VanPeteghen ran in just one race as a freshman, so her sophomore year was a sort of coming out party. By the make-or-break point of the season, she had become a force to be reckoned with. VanPeteghen slotted in second in the Sunset League finals, then ran a lifetime-best time of 17:03.5 in the CIF Division 1 final to advance to the state meet as an individual. Considering the Oilers had just one senior on the starting line, they should be primed to make another run at a league championship and more next season.
Grace Wagener
Laguna Beach | Fr.
The new kid on the block made a name for herself in short order, consistently leading the state-meet-bound Breakers. Wagener jetted to her three-mile personal record of 17:34.9 in a top-25 showing in the girls’ sweepstakes race of the Orange County championships. In her next race, she grabbed the Pacific Hills League crown in leading Laguna Beach over St. Margaret’s, 20-44, for the team title. Wagener paced the Breakers in the CIF Division 4 preliminaries (fifth, 18:16.1) and finals (16th, 18:01.9), as well as the Division IV state final (50th, 19:01.4).
Sally Woodruff
Marina | Sr.
Woodruff’s career-best performance was her last, as she raced to a ninth-place finish and a time of 18:10.7 in the CIF Division 2 preliminaries. While her bid to make the CIF finals as an individual did not come to fruition, Woodruff added another highlight in placing second in the medium schools race of the Orange County championships. She placed sixth in the Sunset League finals, earning her second straight at-large berth into the CIF postseason.
SECOND TEAM
Name, School, Year
Allie Cabal, Newport Harbor, Fr.
Sophia Garcia-Ramirez, Newport Harbor, Jr.
Ashlynn Mendrin, Huntington Beach, Fr.
Karina Pitz, Laguna Beach, Sr.
Allie Rowan, Huntington Beach, So.
Emilie Steinman, Corona del Mar, Jr.
Ella Volpe, Laguna Beach, Jr.
Avery Williams, Edison, Jr.
