Paso Robles High School senior Tyler Daillack is set to compete in the 2024 Foot Locker Cross Country National Championship Saturday morning in San Diego.
The 17-year-old finished the West Regional Championship race at Mt. San Antonio College earlier this month in first place, with a time of 15:28. The top-10 finishers of the race were gifted a trip to San Diego to compete against each other, showcasing the nation's fastest high school runners in the country.
Daillak is also a former Mountain League cross-country champion and a CIF Central Section champion. Earlier this season, he accepted a full-ride scholarship to Cal Poly where he joins names like Davis Bove who received Big West men’s Athlete of the Year honors, Rory Catsimanes who earned men’s freshman of the year, and Ryan Vanhoy who was named men's coach of the year last season.
Cal Poly's cross country team also won the 2024 Big West championships for the third year in a row, sweeping both the men's and women's team titles.
“I was not expecting myself to get this far, but I did it," Daillak said of himself. "And I put in the effort for it, and I'm here.”
Not only is he representing Paso Robles, but the entire region, with only four other runners from California competing alongside him coming from Los Gatos, Fresno, Newport Beach, and Danville.
"It feels kind of amazing to be representing my school at a meet this big," he said. "It's like I've never been to a crazy big nationals meet yet. So definitely going to be a good experience representing the school and stuff like that."
