* Newbury Park senior Colin Sahlman poses for photographs after breaking four minutes for the mile indoors
Photo Credit: New York MileSplit
Hobbs Kessler. Drew Hunter. And now Colin Sahlman.
The Newbury Park (CA) High School senior became the third-fastest runner at the full mile distance on Saturday at the Dr. Sander Invitational at the Armory in New York City, clocking a final time of 3:58.81.
Better yet, he won the race, too, beating a contingent that included Eric Holt, Jonah Koech, Ryan Hill and Robby Andrews. In fact, Sahlman was the only athlete to go under four minutes, and he came on like a lion in the final 200 meters, splitting a final 200m split of 27.79 seconds to take the win.
Only Kessler, who ran the highs school national record of 3:57.66 last year, and Hunter, who owns times of 3:57.81 and 3:58.25, have run faster all-time.
Sahlman is coming off of his opener outdoors in Arizona on Jan. 22, when he clocked a 4:05.13 at the Sundown Track Series. Moreover, this result aligns with his high school national best of 14:03.29 for 5K in cross country at the Garmin RunningLane Cross Country Championships in December.
Sahlman becomes the 12th high schooler to ever break four minutes for the mile and only the fourth ever to do it indoors. Kessler did not run a full mile outdoors in 2021, though he did break the high school national record in the 1,500m with a time of 3:34.36.
And yet, that wasn't the only action coming Newbury Park's way on Saturday.
In the 3K, Panthers junior Lex Young finished in 7:57.06 and teammate Aaron Sahlman went 8:01.72, finishing fourth and eighth, respectively, in an invitational field featuring collegians and pros.
Young is now No. 2 all-time indoors -- behind his brother, Nico, who owns the national record of 7:56.97 from 2020 -- while Sahlman, Colin's younger brother, is No. 4.
