Underdog St. Michael girls win state championship

PHOENIX

The last time the St. Michael girls’ cross-country team hoisted a state title was in 2002.

The Lady Cardinals broke a 16-year drought by claiming this year’s Arizona Division IV state title on Saturday at the Cave Creek Golf Course in north Phoenix.

Behind the first-place finish of junior Aliandrea Upshaw, St. Michael tallied 63 points in team standings with Hopi trailing a distant second with 102 points and Chandler Preparatory further back with 137.

“I am so proud of my team,” said Upshaw, who battled Pinon senior Precious Robinson for the individual state crown.

“They are so amazing” she said of her teammates, as sophomores Chiara Holgate (fifth) and Auri Quintana (21st) joined Upshaw on the all-state team. “They put in a lot of hard work into this.”
Upshaw toured the hilly 5K-course in 18 minutes, 18.33 seconds with Robinson trailing nearly 11 seconds back.

“This is so surreal,” Upshaw said. “I heard a lot of people cheering for me but I could feel Precious behind me. I just knew that I had to stay focused.”

For most of the race, they ran neck-to-neck before Upshaw found another gear in the last mile or so.

“It took a lot out of me,” the St. Michael harrier said. “There were some things playing through my head but I just told myself to not panic or get frustrated. I just had to run my race and I knew I would be fine.”

Robinson, who clocked in at 18:29.89, said she was feeling fine after the first mile but she started to lose momentum as they approached the second mile.

“I started to feel a little tired with the rolling hills,” she said. “That is where (Ali) got a few steps ahead of me and I couldn’t catch her.”

The Pinon runner said she was happy for Upshaw and she had no ill feeling about finishing as the reserve champion.

“This is real cool,” she said. “This is my highest finish at state. I have improved a lot.”

St. Michael coach Kelly Bia said it’s been a long time coming for the school to win its fourth state title but, based on last year’s runner-up performance, her squad had all the pieces to win this year’s crown.

“We were a young group last year so I felt like we were the underdogs,” Bia said. “We kind of kept that same mentality throughout the year and that helped. The girls understood how hard it was to make the podium last year and they worked extremely hard this year.”

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