Hayward Field at the University of Oregon is regarded as the nation’s track and field mecca. The venue hosted the 2022 World Athletics Championships and is the most often used site for the U.S. Championships, including this year’s edition July 6-9.
Five athletes competing for the Los Gatos Track Club—Aydon Stefanopoulos, Brady Kamali, Jake Bohane, Levi Romero and Wil Brennan—got to live out a dream when they ran in the Nike Outdoor Nationals June 15-18.
Brennan, Kamali and Romero are all recent Los Gatos High graduates, Bohane is an incoming senior and Stefanopoulos an incoming junior. Brennan, Bohane, Kamali and Romero finished second in the boys championship division 4×400 meter relay race in 3 minutes, 18.94 seconds.
Stefanopoulos placed 20th in a PR of 4:13.03 in the boys championship one mile race. Romero said just being able to experience the sights and sounds of the storied Hayward Field was something he’ll never forget.
“Entering the stadium was mind blowing,” he said. “It was crazy seeing all of the different facilities they had there, I’ve never seen anything like it. Usually a setup like that would only be for football, so it was cool seeing a place like that designated for track and field. The place was amazing, the whole place was beautiful. It was really like a dream come true to race at that stadium. Not everyone gets to do it so it was amazing to be given that opportunity.”
Brennan and Romero actually competed in the open 400 meter championship division race the day before the relay event, with Brennan finishing 17th in 48.85 seconds and Romero 22nd in 49.10. Kamali and Bohane competed in the 400 emerging elite division, with Kamali placing 18th in 50.69 seconds and Bohane 26th in 51.44.
While none of the quartet came close to hitting a PR in the open 400 or relay races, it was somewhat expected given they were coming off a long high school season and they peaked for the CIF State Championships in the final weekend of May.
“We weren’t expecting to PR or anything,” Romero said. “We just wanted to go out there and do our best, go out one last time and be able to race with each of our teammates. It was a wonderful experience, more about placement than time. That was our mindset going into it. I’m satisfied with our results. I feel we did well. It was an enjoyable experience.”
In addition to his PR in the mile, Stefanopoulos was 18th in the two mile race in 9:13.28. The distance ace is up for a huge honor as one of three candidates for the MileSplitCA Sophomore Boys Athlete of the Year.
MileSplit is one of California’s premier track and field media outlets and earning any AOY award from them is a high-achieving honor. Stefanopoulos placed fourth in the state finals in the 3200 meters in 8:57.99—the No. 5 time among all sophomores in the nation this past year—and was eighth in the 1600 in 4:10.55, the No. 8 time for the class of 2025 runners.
One of California’s best 1600-3200 combo runners has two years remaining and should Stefanopoulos’ health hold form, there’s no telling how many more spectacular races he’ll produce. A state title isn’t out of the question, either, which will be truly historic because there have been only a handful of boys out of the Central Coast Section to win one of the distance events in CIF State Championship history.
For the recently graduated trio of Brennan, Kamali and Romero, they’ll rest a bit before resuming training again for the college indoor track and field season. Kamali will compete at Tufts University in Massachusetts while close friends Brennan and Romero will continue to be teammates, this time at Cal Poly.
“It’s going to be really exciting, a dream come true,” Romero said. “Me and Wil talked about this at the beginning of the season. We made it our goal to both go to a D-I school and we were kind of joking around saying to each other it would be cool if we ended up at the same school. So it’s really amazing what we did and seeing this dream come to reality.”
