One of the more pleasant surprises for Sedona Red Rock High School’s athletic program last school year was the cross country team in the fall. Despite being limited in experience when the season began last year, the girls reached the state meet while the boys narrowly missed.

Both the boys and girls are looking to build off of those positive experiences with the onset of summer practices.

“We have a solid group of five for the boys — we could use a little more,” returning sophomore runner Carlos Villegas said. “I think some of the girls are out of town and haven’t come. But I’m sure they will.”

Second year coach Ben Scamihorn stated that he was encouraged by the overall participation, especially given that summer practices aren’t mandatory. He noted that he’s had as many as 10 kids at individual practices.

While many sports have returned to summer practice, things aren’t exactly business as usual for most of them. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, teams have restrictions on how many people can practice at a time, what can be done during practice and what has to be done to ensure that the equipment being used is safe. For cross country, though, the practices have been more or less normal.

“It’s a little easier for us than the other sports because one, we’re outdoors and two, we don’t have equipment,” Scamihorn said. “I just try to have them not be right on top of each other when they’re running and doing exercises but it’s honestly pretty easy for us. The other sports have to sanitize their equipment — which they should have to, I’m glad they have to.”

Scamihorn did add that while practices aren’t that much different this year than they’d be in a non-COVID one, meets, especially the first few, could pose challenges that decision makers will have to find ways to navigate around.

“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” the coach said. “You would think, cross country, outdoors, running, you’re fine. But at the start, you’re all in like a chute. I don’t know. It’s going to be interesting.”

Assuming they are able to figure out a way to hold meets, the overall outlook for both of the Scorpions teams is promising.

The boys, who were almost exclusively first-year runners last year, will return nearly their entire core lineup that now knows the sport much better.

Things will be different for the girls. Most of the key runners from last year’s state qualifying team have either moved or graduated. But despite the new faces, Scamihorn said the progress the girls have shown in the early practices
has left the coach optimistic about what the season might hold.

“Honestly, the girls this year — the ones that have been here — are pretty good,” Scamihorn said. “Both teams are going to be a lot better this year than they were last year.”

Finally, while Scamihorn has been pleased with the numbers during the voluntary summer practices, he expects the numbers to increase even more as the beginning of the season gets closer and mandatory practices begin.

The coach also hopes that anyone who might be on the fence about joining the team talks to some of the returning athletes.

“If anyone who’s interested talks to the kids who ran on the team last year, they’ll really see how close-knit we all were and how we became a family,” he said.

“And also, just looking at how much each runner improved last year, that’s something that everyone can go through,” Scamihorn added. “Even if you don’t think you’re a runner or you’re not where you’d like to be with your running, if you get out there and do it, you’re going to get better at it.”