Cesar Diaz (front) leads Jorge Trujillo through the mid-race wash in the D3 Boys race. (photo by John Hays)
The D3 Boys Race went off as the second race of the day at the State Championships, and even at 8:55 am in November, the brutal Arizona sun was already relentlessly baking the competition.
Juniors Cesar Diaz (Mingus Union) and Jorge Trujillo (Rio Rico) traded the lead throughout the race, but at the two mile mark, Trujillo appeared to have made a push to drop Diaz, with Trujillo holding a six-second gap over the Marauder.
According to Diaz, an unmarked cone led him to misunderstand the course. "I kept following the pavement and he got ahead of me, but I pushed hard to catch him again and luckily I was able to," said Diaz.
After taking back control of the race, Diaz' pressed through and with the finish in his sights his only thought was 'I can't let him catch me.' Arms flailing, Diaz held off Trujillo for the victory as the sole male Marauder representing Mingus Union. Trujillo took second in 16:25, followed by Nate Pestka (Shadow Mountain) in 16:30, Namath Gene (Holbrook) in 16:33, and Caleb Anson (Snowflake) in 16:38.
The next forty seconds turned into Salpointe Catholic's absolute masterclass on pack running. Michael Urbanski (Salpointe Catholic, Jr.) finished 6th for the Lancers in 16:39, followed by Wyatt Pickering (Lee Williams, So.) in 16:47, just a step ahead of Salpointe Senior Diego Delgado.
Ten seconds later, Diego Veliz (Salpointe Catholic, Jr.) placed ninth, just under 17-minutes, while Joby Rojas (Thatcher, Sr.) rounded out the top ten in 17:01. Diego Logan-Bashad (Salpointe Catholic, Sr.) came through just three seconds later and with him across the line, the Lancers already had four ahead of every other team's second guy.
John Harris' (Salpointe Catholic, Sr.) 17th place finish locked down the win for the Lancers out of Tucson, Arizona to take their second consecutive cross country State-Title. Diego Delgado put it best when he said, "We made sure not to be complacent this year. We put in the work and we were really happy to come out and lay it all out."
The Lancers hadn't simply maintained their lead throughout the race, they had expanded it by condensing their score down to just 46 points, the lowest of the entire meet along with the widest margin of victory. The Page Sand Devils placed second with 126 points second, while Shadow Mountain finished third with 162 points.
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