Desert Solstice XC Festival
As the first major meet of the season, the Desert Solstice Festival did not disappoint. A total of a hundred-and-threeschools assembled at Crooked Tree Golf Course on Friday evening, for fourteen races set for just under four hours. In the last four races we witnessed showings from the strongest boys' and girls' team in Arizona.
In the Boys' Black race, Leo Daschbach (Highland, Sr.) opened his season by throwing down the gauntlet along Crooked Tree Golf Course and clocking in at 15:22 for a brand-new course record. Almost a half a minute later, Roshan Miranda finished runner-up just seconds off of his PR from last season, followed by Braedon Palmer (Sunrise Mountain, Sr.) as the third Arizona boy under 16-minutes to this point.
The Girls Blue race closed out the first night of the season down in Marana, with sister transfers Lauren and Grace making their debut in Desert Vista colors. Lauren led the race hard from the front and dominated the field in 17:46. Her elder sister Grace placed second just a second ahead of Caroline McLeskey (Sr.) of the Highland Hawks.
Both the Highand boys' and the Desert Vista girls' squads secured crucial victories in the color races. Though both teams are extremely top heavy, they have some space between numbers 3-4-5 which are open to be filled by other rival elite level teams.