A decade of Arizona Cross Country has come to a close and boy it was gangbusters to say the least! In those 10 years, the state has seen athletes come and go leaving lasting marks on their programs and on hollowed grounds of courses around the State.
We saw dynasties built and strengthened and we learned that while streaks can be broken, a team of athletes that buy into each other cannot. We saw course changes and meets switch venues, but regardless of where we ran, we knew nothing could compare to the rush of working one's way along a path and achieving a goal with friends by our side.
To succinctly recap the decade's top performers, we decided to announcement four All-Decade teams, one for each division. You can relive some of the most memorable moments with this list of each division's 10 finest athletes of the decade.
When selecting these athletes, we looked at each division's top performers over the past ten years and compared them to the top performers in each division at the State Championship.
* Please note: These are the opinions of this state-editor and not necessarily definitive rankings of athletes. We tried to take into account the runners' overall career for Arizona, and how they ran during the decade.
Performances before 2010 were considered but not prioritized and while some athletes won state championships or earned all-state honors, or ran faster personal records, before 2010, their performances within the last ten years are the deciding factors at play here. The top seven athletes listed make up the division's All-Decade team while the three athletes listed below are honorable mentions.
Navigate the list on your right to find each of the athletes' profiles. Some teams of many of the former athletes mentioned here competed in divisions that no longer apply to them after classification changes. We took into account only what division they ran under as Seniors and based their status on that. Following each division's All-Decade Teams, we conclude with our own list of the overall Arizona All-Decade Girls' Team.