This year at Dos Pueblos High school, eight track and field school records were broken, and boys cross country set a school record. In track and field, Kellan Cotter (11) set the school 200-meter and 400-meter records, and was a part of a record-breaking distance medley relay team. The girls 4×100-meter relay team consisting of Tabitha Weller (10), Ruby Streatfeild (11), Hazel Burgess (11), and Lucia Riley (12) set a school record as well.

Additionally, Ashton Smedley (12) was part of three record-breaking relay teams and set the school 1-mile record. Cullen Gully (12) set the school record for the 800-meter race and was a part of the same relay teams as Smedley. Boys cross country won California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) – Southern Section Division One for the first time in school history, and had the fastest combined time as a team in the 5K event in school history.

Cotter said that he had spent three years in his high school track and field career to break the school 200-meter record.

“I put in a lot of work in my 400-meter times, which always directly translates to 200,” Cotter said. “It’s been just a lot of nights and mornings out hill running and doing any kind of sprint workout. I have spent hours and hours of work.”

Cotter added that he dealt with injuries in his first two years of his track and field career.

“I’ve had a lot of battles with injuries throughout my track and field career, especially sophomore year,” Cotter said. “I had a lot of different injuries, but I’ve been working really hard to make sure that those don’t come back, and I finally started seeing breakthroughs.”

On the cross country side, DPHS cross country coach David Jackson speaks on the team record and the strong team performance.

“They broke the all-time DPHS team record, … they ran like 77 minutes, which is just unbelievable. That’s around 15 minutes a man, which is crazy fast. And they did it that fast because it was in the championship race for CIF, which has never happened for DPHS before,” Jackson said. “It was a huge, huge record-breaking … team time, the gap between runners one to five was down to like, 28 seconds. They brought home the title, and that’s never happened before.”

Jackson added that the DPHS cross country team had an X factor this year in their new addition to the program: national-caliber coach Michael Smedley, who contributed to the team’s success.

“One of the biggest pieces of this record-breaking season was that we brought in someone who is a national-caliber coach at the Olympic level, legitimately, and because his child was on the team, we’re just lucky enough to have his presence,” Jackson said. “But by giving him the power and the authority to make big decisions without having to run them by me led to him feeling confident that he’s doing the best thing for the kids.”

According to Ashton, his dad Michael pushes him and his teammates to perform their best and work hard.

“I’ve been running pretty much every day, about six days a week since freshman year,” Ashton said.“So a lot of effort has gone into it, just miles and miles of one foot in front of the other.”

Ashton added how Michael influenced the team and provided him with opportunities to improve.

“My dad is our coach, and he does a phenomenal job of getting us in the right form at the right time,” Ashton said. “He’s really pushed me into becoming part of what I know I can become [and] he’s been able to do some amazing things in the sport that I know I can hopefully live up to.”

Jackson shared that unity and accepting that everyone is a leader was the biggest challenge that the cross country team faced.

“Our biggest challenge was coming together. We have a lot of people who feel like they should be the leader of the team or the captain of the team,” Jackson said. “There was a lot of internal strife, and it’s really hard to address those things front on and come to an agreement that we’re all leaders. You’ll go farther if you work together doing this and in those ways.”

For the girls varsity 4×100-meter team, team bonding wasn’t an issue.

“I like to hang out with Ruby and Lucia and all the track people, and I feel like this season we built such a tight bond with our whole team, which is really fun,” Burgess said.

Streatfeild shared that the 4×100-meter event requires not only physical strength but a strong mentality as well. 

“I feel like track is half athletics and half a mental battle between you and your body,” Streatfeild said.

Additionally, Burgess and Streatfeild shared their goal to break records.

“Definitely like breaking records and PR-ing, knowing that we can be better every meet and every day at practice has always driven us,” both said.

Edited 5/12/2026 for caption clarification. 

Updated 5/15/2026 for information.