While at least one race still remains for most of the team, Sedona Red Rock High School’s cross country team wrapped up its regular season at the Holbrook Invitational on Friday, Oct. 23.
As the trail was not an especially fast one, personal records were hard to come by. Only one SRRHS runner set a personal record. But even with the slower times, the Scorpions posted a number of strong finishes.
One of those strong finishes belonged to junior Shota Yabuuchi. He ran in the boys varsity race and posted a time of 17:50.58 to finish fourth. Sophomore Korbin Burke finished strong in the boys open race, winning it with a time of 19:36.00. Burke’s finish came despite running on his own for a good portion of the race.
“There wasn’t really anybody around me so I couldn’t really tell how fast to go,” Burke said. “But I still did alright. It’s challenging to keep going as fast as you want and I didn’t go as fast as I wanted to. But I still got it done and was still hurting a little at the end.”
Scorpion freshman Alexis Pedroza finished 10th [21:49.80] in the boys open race. Senior Nick Rubin [22:51.87] was 15th while freshman Michael Calderon [21:07.06] was sixth. Rubin’s run was his final high school cross country race and he went out strong, setting a personal record for the third meet in a row.
Among the Scorpions to finish behind Yabuuchi in the varsity race were sophomore Carlos Villegas [20:24.48], senior Francisco Bekele [20:46.37], sophomore Kale Emerson [20:57.84], junior Jack Pierce [21:11.58], and freshmen Isaac Montes de Oca [21:16.44] and Benji Cook [22:25.22].
The girls team was led by freshman Skyla Bird [22:53.31], sophomore Jackie Palmer [22:58.52] and junior Yaritza Landa [24:12.24], who finished 16th, 18th and 29th, respectively, in the girls varsity race. Those three have generally been the fastest runners on the SRRHS girls team all season. Despite being completely different from the girls team that qualified for state a season ago, the Scorpion girls have a decent chance of making it again in 2020.
“I think we’re doing pretty good,” Bird said. “In the beginning of the season we were all kind of starting from the beginning. None of us had much experience. Now we’re all doing pretty good — we’re all confident before our races and I think we have a good chance of making it to state.”
Next up for Sedona is the AIA Sectionals Crossroads on Wednesday, Nov. 4, in Gilbert. In a normal year, the top 50% of full teams qualifying would go to state. But due to COVID-19, that number will be trimmed to the top 33% this year. The number of full teams entered to sectionals won’t be known until later in the week. Additionally, the top seven runners on teams that don’t qualify for state will qualify as individuals.
Over the next week, coach Ben Scamihorn will have lighter practices during the lead-in to state.
“We’re entering our peaking season,” Scamihorn said. “Their mileage will slightly drop and the workouts will get a little easier to freshen their legs up for race day. Then we’re going to watch ‘McFarland USA.’ Hopefully that will get them pumped up.”
Regardless of how sectionals and state ends up, Scamihorn also expressed happiness with how the season has been. As official practices were beginning during the last week of August, having a season was anything but certain and Scamihorn was trying to figure out how to fill both the boys and girls rosters out.
Things have changed in the subsequent two months.
“Now that both teams are competitive and looking to qualify for state — that’s more than I could have hoped for,” Scamihorn said. “Also, both teams are such a great group of kids. They’ve all gotten so close like their family now. That’s something that I cherish as much as if we win state.”
