Gilbert Teams Lean On Each Other After Efforts At Freestone
The Gilbert District Championships were the earliest held on Wednesday, with the races divided by grade, beginning with the freshman race at 1pm.
Mitchell Jones dominated the freshman competition by almost a minute-and-a-half as the sole victor outside of Highland. Kathryn Sewell reliably led the way for Kayla Case and Emma Baugh to finish as the top-three freshman girls.
Miles McLeskey won the Sophomore race followed by Javier Garcia of Gilbert Tigers. Jordyn Carter finished as the top sophomore girl, and then Chloe Squires finished second just ahead of Alya Young of Gilbert Classical Academy.
Jagger Zlotoff pulled off the win over his teammate Brandon Ericson in the Junior race. Monte Gardiner (Desert Ridge) dipped just under 18-minutes to finish third. Emma Finchum and Marina Dear and Story Alexander finished as the second third and eighth fastest girls of the afternoon.
Leo Daschbach led a monstrous lead around Freestone Park and came through in 15:15 to handily clinch the victory in the Senior boys' race. Behind Daschbach, second place came down to the wire between fellow Hawk Sam Green and Kenny Edwards (Campo Verde, Sr.) with Green edging out Edwards by a hair.
Caroline McLeskey came through as the top girl and tenth finisher in the Senior race overall. Her teammates Jariel Sebastian, Kristin Keller, Grace Larson followed over the next five minutes to finish second, third, and fourth.
After the awards, the Highland Hawks concluded the meet arm and arm in a circle playing Bill Withers' classic 'Lean On Me'. This time they were joined by several athletes from the other Gilbert schools including Campo Verde, Desert Ridge, and Gilbert Classical Academy.