Náshdóítsoh Invite: Shiprock harriers sweep individual crowns

TOHATCHI, N.M.

The Shiprock Chieftains made it a clean sweep of the individual titles during last Friday’s Náshdóítsoh Invitational at Hamburger Hill.

Shiprock junior Jazelle Thompson won the girls crown while male counterpart Kaden Lapahie took the boys title. Meanwhile, the Zuni boys and the Miyamura girls were the team champions.

“It’s the first race of the season and I feel pretty good,” Lapahie said. “This is a good start, and hopefully I can progress throughout the year. I hope to get stronger at each and every race.”

Lapahie toured the 5K race in 16:46.17 and held off a late charge from St. Michael sophomore Evans Tracy, who clocked in at 16:51.51.

“I knew he was drawing closer,” Lapahie said of Tracy. “I turned a corner, and I took a quick peek and I saw that he was right there, so I decided to push harder.”

He took that quick peek as he was about to ascend the final hill of the rock-strewn course near U.S. Route 491 at the Tohatchi High-hosted meet.

“I was fine,” Lapahie said when asked about running that final hill. “I mean, Shiprock has a lot of hills, so lately I’ve been doing a lot of hills. I’m pretty used to it, so every time we run hills it helps us when we run flatter courses.”

With his first championship under his belt, Lapahie is looking forward to the rest of the season as is looking to win more meets.

“My goal is to finish in the top 5, top 10 this year,” he said. “Of course, most of the time I want to win my races and just try to progress for each race.

“I want to try and hits new PRs, too,” he added.

More than anything, Lapahie says he wants to help the Chieftain boys get qualified for state at the end of the season.

“I want to take them to state because we haven’t taken a team to state for the past three years,” he said. “Our squad is pretty good this year. They’re strong and pretty talented.”

Tracy, who placed fourth at the Rick Baker Invitational two days prior to the Tohatchi meet, worked his way from sixth place to second on Friday afternoon.

“It’s kind of hard to race in back-to-back races like that,” Tracy said. “You don’t have as much energy to run the second race, but I gave it all I could.”

As for finishing five seconds behind Lapahie, the St. Michael harrier was elated that he was able to make some ground on trying to catch the Shiprock runner.

“I’m happy with what I did,” said Tracy, who is looking to break in the 15-minute range this season. “It was pretty challenging, but I just told myself to not quit.”

With a time of 17:27.74, Gallup senior Sage Livingston placed third as he finished ahead of Zuni harrier Anthony Hustito, who crossed the finish line in 17:55.45. Fifth place went to Miyamura’s Izaiah Freeland as he finished in 17:56.75.

“I feel pretty good,” said Zuni’s Hustito. “I took the downhills pretty fast, and I charged up the last big hill.”

Last season, Hustito was Zuni’s third, fourth and fifth runner but over the summer he logged in about 40 miles a week in preparation for this season.

“I ran a lot over the summer,” Hustito said. “I want to give it my all this year since it’s my senior year. It’s my last ride.”

Headed by Hustito, the T-Birds racked 41 points in the team standings. Zuni had three other runners make the top 10 with Allen Dosedo (17:59.66) taking sixth, Deron Lastyano (18:15.57) earning seventh and DeShawn Soseeah (18:59.62) taking 10th. Eden Bobelu (20:15.98) completed the team score with a 23rd-place finish.

“I pretty much return everybody from last year,” longtime coach Chris Carroll said. “I had a couple seniors last year, but they were my back runners, and not really my top runners, so we return a good core this year and they’re mostly seniors.”

As for Hustito’s fourth-place effort, Carroll wasn’t surprised with his finish.

“Anthony really put some mileage in this summer, and he really set some goals for himself,” Carroll said.

Girls

Thompson won the Tohatchi meet with a time of 20:48.22 as she beat last year’s winner Catherine Denetclaw of Tohatchi by over 12 seconds.

“This is my first time running this course and it was hard,” Thompson said. “There’s a lot of rocky areas and I had to watch where I was stepping. At one point, I had to step over a big hole, but I just kept going.”

The Shiprock harrier used last week’s race to acclimate herself with her district rival Kylie Montano as the Miyamura runner placed third at 21:31.14.

“Kylie Montano is one of my biggest competitors,” Thompson said. “I was really wanting to stay with her because she went out fast. By the time we ran the first loop, I decided to pass her, and I just kept that pace.”

Last season, Thompson had a lost all her races to Miyamura runner.

“She was actually ahead of me most of the time,” the Shiprock runner said of Montano. “This is great start for me, and I’m gonna keep pushing myself. I’m happy with what I did today.

“My performance was good,” she added. “My teammates did good, too, and I’m hoping that we can have a good season.”

Denetclaw, the defending meet champion, was sitting third for most of the race until she passed Montano about midway through the race. And while she had Thompson in her sights, the Tohatchi runner was unable to close the large gap that the Shiprock runner had.

“There was a little bit of me wanting to finish first again, but I was just happy to be that close to Jazelle,” Denetclaw said. “In the past, she would be a long way ahead of me and don’t think that I’ve been this close in a race with her, so it’s kind of confidence booster.”

Moving forward, the Tohatchi junior is looking to break the 20-minute mark this season, a feat she hasn’t done for the past two season.

“I’m close, but I just need to cut off about 10 seconds,” she said.

Led by Montano, the Patriots racked up 38 points for the team championship. The Patriots also got a fourth-place effort from Shelby Haskie (21:50.52) and an 8-9 finish from Shelby McCray (22:40.04) and Aubrey Martin (22:40.93). To complete the team score, Payton Haskie (23:57.43) placed 17th overall.

“They did very well today,” Miyamura coach Manuelito McReeves said of his girls team. “They’re staying together. They’re closing the gap, so we have a good one to four. We just got to work on our fifth runner, but right now, man, they’re running well.”

The Miyamura coach was also impressed with his top two boys finishers in Izaiah Freeland (fourth) and Dustin Chatto (ninth).

“It was good to see some of our competition in our district,” McReeves said. “We got to see Shiprock and Gallup but it’s the beginning of the season. We still have a long way to go, especially with our boys.

“Right now, they’re working,” he added.

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