Gila Ridge Divisioin II Champions - All photos by Margot Kelly
Sometimes preseason rankings help fans figure out which teams will win come November, sometimes they do not. Senior and team captain of Gila Ridge Robert Rillamas recalled his team being ranked 48th coming into the season. He wanted to do something about it. “There were three of us seniors, and we wanted to leave our mark. We worked hard. We worked in the morning. We worked in the afternoon. We wanted to win today. Winning was the only option.” And win they did. Despite being in 3rd place as a team at two miles, the Hawks were able to sneak by Greenway (124) and Shadow Mountain (166) a strong finish and 99 points. It certainly should be a boost to their confidence heading into Nike Cross Regionals for the fastest high school team in Yuma.
Salpointe Catholic senior Nathan Thomas (photo left) got a boost of his own coming in state having won his sectional race. He also knew that there was a lot of competition at the state meet. The race certainly lived up to his expectation. Challenged early on by Emmanuel Hidalgo and Abdi Aden from McClintock High School, Thomas recalled it being a fight. “We were playing teeter totter throughout the whole second mile. About mile two I tried to break away from them and Alex from Saguaro came with me and then we were battling it out.” With about 400m meters left Nathan’s coach said that it was his time to go. He listened, leaving Alex Stevens (Saguaro) behind, and claimed the individual title in a blazing fast 15:53.
The women’s race also belonged to a harrier from Tucson—Canyon Del Oro’s Bridgette Doucet (Photo Right). Unlike Nathan Thomas, she had a relatively large margin of victory when she broke the tape in 18:07. Her strategy was simple going into the race, “I don’t come into races with a for sure strategy,” explained Doucet, “well other than don’t trip or don’t get lost, I just wanted to stay up with the front pack and not let the hills phase me.” Coming through the first mile, the race was tight, but by the 2 mile mark Bridgette had gained a 15 second lead on the field and dipped well below 12 minutes. No one could match her endurance over the last half of the course. Despite her large margin of victory Bridgette stayed at the finish line until every last competitor had finished. She was the first to congratulate all of her opponents on a race well done, an act of sportsmanship that would make any coach proud.
Most coaches might start worrying when they have to line up three athletes at state who are in their first year of the sport, but Catalina Foothill’s first year coach Mike Smith is not one of them. He knew what his girls had and knew it was more than enough to improve on last year’s runner up finish. “Flagstaff is a great team, they have won the past three or four years. We knew they were going to be tough, but we had decided back in June that this was our year. The girls were tired of being second and wanted to put the work in to change that.” Showing up every day for 6 AM practice may not be on the top of the priority list for a typical high school student. For the defending state track champions, it was a sacrifice they were willing to make in order to add a cross country championship to their high school experience.
Catalina Foothills Division II Champions
Knowing it would take a change to the status quo and take down the defending champions from Flagstaff, Coach Smith devised a plan with the Catalina Foothills’s men’s program to help sync the workouts. This allowed his girls team to compete with the guys team every day in practice. In addition to adding more competition during the workouts, he increased the amount of thresholds his girls did. “That was something they were not used to, but it has helped them to run strong.” The Falcons certainly have adapted well to Coach Smith’s threshold training and listened to his advice about running patient. Early on in the race Flagstaff and Vista Grande got out ahead of them, but they battled back. When the dust settled Catalina Foothills had 84 points, Flagstff 96 and Vista Grande 120. “We are a second half team, we have been all year, I tell them to run patient and good things will happen,” explained Coach Smith. Early morning practice, threshold work and patience certainly paid off for these lady Falcon’s as their team took home the champions trophy.