Chinle boys, Window Rock girls bounce back with team titles

SHIPROCK

The Chinle High School cross-country boys’ team showed up at the Shiprock Chieftain Invitational for one thing: redemption.

They did not do as well as they know they could the weekend before at their home meet.

They proved that on Saturday when the team scored 56 points to defeat Kirtland Central High School who scored 58 points. Navajo Preparatory School followed in third place as a team with 98 points.

Chinle High School co-head coach Beatrice Begay said all season the team focused on running together and in Shiprock they finally reaped the fruits of their labor.

“The focus this week was working on team work, they were looking for each other…they knew coming into it they were wanting to race today,” Begay said. “They kind of felt crappy last week with how they felt in our invite, they wanted to do very well today so they’re happy.”

Chinle senior Santiago Hardy led the team and finished in second overall with a time of 15 minutes, 43.19 seconds. And with that outstanding time, Santiago also broke the course record.

Junior Josiah Tsosie came in second for the team and third overall in 16:33.89.

Sophomore Isaiah Hunyumptewa came in next for Chinle by placing 10th overall in 17:09.72. The rest of the team score consist of Wyatt Ute, who placed 19th overall, and freshman Nicholas Ryan’s 22nd place finish. Ute ran a 17:52.25 while Ryan was clocked in at 17:54.77.

As for the pace setters, Begay said Hardy and Tsosie had been working diligently and they finally got to see the rewards of working as a team.

“They’ve been working together. Santiago, I know he’s been pushing himself to do a lot better…” Begay said. “I think they looked at today as a starting point for them and working together more and keeping closer to that two and three guy. The training they’ve done this weekend and the workouts they did this week showed coming into today.”

For the girls, the Window Rock High School Lady Scouts had a turning point in their season.

After having a lackluster performance at their home meet the weekend before, and following up with a solid practice, Window Rock head coach Stephen Fabina said the team got what they were looking for.

“I felt like this week we were able to focus just solely on our training and the kids gave great effort all week long,” he said. “It was our best week of practice so far this season and it showed today.”
The Lady Scouts finished with 48 points and edged the host team by a mere three points.

Window Rock senior standout Chamique DuBoise led the pack and won the race in 19:30.83. Taylor Murphy took ninth in 21:10.23 while Cameron Long placed 11th in 21:38.92. Annoesika Laughlin (21:44.22) and Bayley Talkalai (21:45.55) completed the team score with a 13th and 14th place effort.

He said it took a hard week of training for them to finally finish strong as a team.

“I was looking forward to seeing how they would respond today after a good week of training and they responded really well,” Fabina said. “Something we’ve been really kind of focusing on is trying to get the first five to bring their pack time down…we finally got it down today to about 2.15 to 2.20, so we’re happy with that. We are making progress, we are moving in the right direction.”

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