St. Michael harrier captures section meet, wins fourth straight race

WINDOW ROCK – St. Michael sophomore Evans Tracy has picked an ideal time to be running his best.

Last week during the Arizona Division IV, North Section meet, Tracy won his fourth consecutive race as the St. Michael harrier covered the 5K course in 17:13.3 at the Lake Powell National Golf Course in Page.

“I felt like I did pretty good,” said Tracy, who led most of the race.

The sectional meet course, designed to resemble the state meet course, had plenty of rolling hills. It also had some flat sections and one semi-big hill, giving runners an early taste of what they should experience at Saturday’s state meet, which will be held at the Cave Creek Golf Course in Phoenix.

Tracy started fast on the Page golf course as he took over the lead after the first mile. From there, he didn’t give up an inch as second-place finisher Preston Myers of Round Valley finished six seconds back at 17:19.8.

“He probably was about 20 meters back,” Tracy said of Preston as they neared the finish line.

Valley (Sanders) runner Tyethan Barney was a little further back as the senior placed third at 17:34.7. With his finish, Barney is Valley’s lone state qualifier.

Coming into the sectional meet, Tracy captured the individual crowns at the Hornet Lace Up & Fly Invitational in Ganado, the Bud Davis Invitational in Tuba City and the 1A North Region meet, which was held this year at St. Michael Indian School.

“I think winning those meets gave me a lot of confidence for sectionals,” Tracy said.

St. Michael second-year coach Latanya Sherman is not surprised with Tracy’s development as she cited an article the Navajo Times published earlier this month examining the sectional meet.

“When I read the Navajo Times article, I was surprised there was no mention of him,” Sherman said. “Evans is one of the top runners in our division and I think he wasn’t mentioned because we went to a lot of New Mexico races.

“You know, Evans didn’t get to match up with the other runners from Greyhills, Many Farms, Piñon, and the other teams in our division,” she added. “But his racing mentality is get out fast and stay up there and run with everybody. Throughout the season, I tried to tell him to kick it back a little and find your pace and go after runners, but he’s a totally different runner than what I’m used to coaching.”

Heading into the state meet, Evans is looking to get a fast start as he is looking to improve on his 47th-place finish from last year.

“I’m hoping to get in a good run, and maybe finish in the top 10,” Tracy said while adding that he’s looking to run a sub-17.

In addition to Tracy, the Cardinals also qualified sophomore DeShawn Smith for the state as he placed 13th overall at the sectional meet.

“It’s his first year running cross-country,” Sherman said of Smith.

In the team standings, St. Michael placed sixth and missed qualifying for state by 18 points as the Cardinals tallied 131 points.

The teams headed to state include section champ Northland Prep (39), Round Valley (78), Hopi (89), Many Farms (101), and Basis Flagstaff (113).

“It’s kind of the same scenario as last year when we missed going to state by 20 points,” Sherman said. “For the past two weeks, we went into training, knowing where we needed to finish. I was telling them that there should be about 15 teams and as long as we finished sixth, we would be fine.”

But with only 10 full teams at the section meet, only the top 5 were invited as the Arizona Interscholastic Association takes the top 50% of scoring teams to state. The Division IV, North Section does have 16 teams, but six of those teams did not have the required five runners to score a team.

“Our game plan was to finish sixth at sectionals and we did that,” Sherman said. “But a lot of the other teams in our division did not field a full team.”

Many Farms, which placed fourth, were paced by the seventh-place finish from senior Justin Yazzie. The rest of the scoring members for the Lobos include sophomore Jeremy Johnson (23rd), sophomore Jayden Halwood (26th), junior Caleb Lee (27th), and freshman Elijah Halwood (35th).

Piñon qualified three individuals for state with sophomore Antwan Clement taking 11th, junior Trent Begay in 18th, and junior Lukus James placing 21st. Greyhills Academy senior Benjamin Miera was the Knights’ lone qualifier.

Girls

Only six squads in the girls race had enough runners to complete a team as Northland Prep won the sectional meet with 38 points followed by Hopi (63) and Basis Flagstaff (73) as those teams qualified for state.

The Bruins had two runners in the top 10 headed by the third-place finish from sophomore Brook Huma and the ninth-place effort from Soonwy Lomayestewa.

Individual state qualifiers include St Michael junior Leonna Slim (sixth), Piñon sophomore Sonora Begay (eighth), Many Farms junior Samara Pete (13th), and Valley Sanders senior Nevaeh Barlow (16th).

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