The Sedona Red Rock Middle School 2024 cross-country season featured the first middle school cross-country team in Sedona- Oak Creek School District history, led by head coach Cody McKesson, who has been training runners hard all season to prepare for the cross-country championship which occurred a few weeks ago on Sept. 25 in Camp Verde. 

The middle school cross-country team features Juni Spielman, Riggin McDaniel, Lelah Dubuque and Mathew Martinez. Spielman is the most talented middle school runner SOCSD has. In her first cross-country season as a Scorpion, Spielman’s natural competitive spirit helped her to win every race leading up to the middle school championship. However when it came time for that she won yet again concluding her undefeated season. 

“I was so shocked, because I was expecting everyone to be much faster than me, because that’s how [it had been in] previous years. [I] ran one year at Sedona charter, and everyone was much faster than me, so I wasn’t really expecting to win, and then I did. And then the pressure kind of started to build up throughout it, but I just remembered to relax and just run my own race,” Spielman said. 

The biggest challenge Spielman faced during the season was practices. Spielman said practices got harder and harder as the season was progressing, but it was a good way to challenge herself. Although the hard practices were physically taxing, they made the races feel like a piece of cake, she said. 

Spielman said she is very excited to run for the Sedona Red Rock High School cross-country team next year, but until then she is shifting her focus towards swimming, which she was competing in simultaneously with cross-country, and is considering playing basketball once that kicks up later in the fall. However, she will not stop training for cross-country despite being extremely busy with other sports. 

This was McDaniel’s first year on any cross-country team and he absolutely killed it, placing seventh overall in the boys championship race. Placing highly in the championship has given McDaniel a lot of confidence, he said, which he hopes to bring into his freshman year next season, when he plans to continue running cross-country. 

While he enjoys running, McDaniel said his main purpose for joining the team was to build stamina and endurance for mountain biking, which he considers to be his main sport. 

While the first-time crosscountry runner’s season ended phenomenally, he said it came with challenges — pacing was difficult to overcome. However the young athlete did so with rigorous practice and with the help of McKesson. 

“I didn’t really know what to think of him at first, because I never knew him before, and he really just surprised me because he made the most improvement over the year,” McKesson said. “His first meet [he] got like 12th, and he was always fighting to get top 10 [in] every meet, and he never could really crack it. And then at the championship meet, he got seventh place and he was half-a-second behind sixth place. So that improvement is just crazy.” 

Dubuque did fabulously in the championship race, finishing 10th. However, she said she was not satisfied with this result and felt she could have done better. Dubuque said she believes she could have done much better if she had paced herself better, however that proved difficult, as pacing was the biggest challenge she faced all season, but she hopes to overcome it by practicing harder. 

She has many hobbies outside of cross-country — soccer with the American Youth Soccer Organization, reading mystery and adventure books and making art. Dubuque’s favorite thing about cross-country is being able to run on the different trails Sedona has to offer, as each one helps her explore more of the scenic area, she said. It’s is also one of her biggest motivators, to join the team again next year. 

Martinez is a dedicated and hardworking runner. Martinez finished a respectable 12 in the championship, despite being in his first year on any cross-country team. 

When the season started, Martinez said he set a goal to finish in the top 10 in any race; unfortunately, he fell short, getting 11th and 12th place multiple times throughout the season. 

Despite not achieving his goal, Martinez said he is still extremely happy with his race results and already has new goals for next season: Getting top five in any race in the season as well as running a mile in under 7 minutes. 

Martinez said the biggest challenge he faced during the season was simply the running aspect, as he considers himself somewhat lazy and cross-country is known for being a very physically demanding sport, which proved difficult at times, however, he is extremely dedicated to the sport and wants to run two miles in his own time everyday even though the season is over. 

While the first season of middle school cross-country was a roaring success, with all four members of the team placing well in the championship, the program lacks many runners. However, the great results and promoting of the sport throughout the school may help increase numbers in upcoming seasons. 

“I think they should join if they feel like they don’t necessarily belong somewhere, because cross-country is like a unique thing where I call it the band of misfits and outcasts,” McKesson said. “It’s kind of like the ‘band kids’ of sports, so if you think you’re different and you don’t really belong somewhere, come join the team. I actually had a parent email me this season, [a parent of] one of the middle schoolers, saying that the this is the only sport that they’ve been in where [their student hasn’t] been bullied. They have been treated nicely and they’ve been welcomed by everybody, even the high-schoolers. So if you want to be a part of that, that’s you should join the cross-country team.”