A Week Late

The Rankings as of September 19, 2007 in “Arizonatrack.com”

Girls
6. Rio Rico
7. Salpointe
13. Mountain View
14. Catalina
18. Catalina Foothills
24. Sabino
25. Ironwood Ridge
25. Buena

Boys
4. Rio Rico
12. Salpointe
13. Mountain View
15. Sabino
16. Catalina
17. Catalina Foothills
20. Nogales
29. Buena

Many teams stayed in town this weekend to run at the Los Mezquites Invitational to solidify there ranking as one of the top 20 teams in the state so they could gain a spot at what may be the biggest meet of the year, The Doug Conley Invitational. The Conley Invitational is a one of a kind in Arizona where you must be invited to participate and to get invited you must rank as one of the top twenty Arizona high school teams against all classes.
On the ladies side we will have little movement in the rankings. Ironwood Ridge who was ranked at number 25 beat 24th ranked Sabino by 11 points at Los Mezquites. In an interesting, “what if” if Sabino would have run their number one runner the week before, Mary Bowen (who took first in the Junior varsity race in a time of 22:04) that would have placed this Sabino runner 13th overall in the varsity race. The team that created the biggest headache was Nogales as they beat 18th ranked Catalina Foothills on their way to a 3rd place finish as a team. In the individual race Hanna Henson of Rio Rico was 2nd (20:15) to race winner Lindsay Prescott (19:33) of Sandra Day O’Connor (Phoenix). Other top ten finishes were Aeoleone Bristow 3rd (20:28) Rio Rico, Zahira Jimenez 5th (20:50) Nogales, Sarah Miville 6th (20:52)Nogales, Konnie Zuniga 8th (21:17) Ironwood Ridge and Christina Price 10th (21:48) Sabino.

On the boy’s side Rio Rico boys came ready to run placing 4 of their top five in the top 10. Rio Rico’s Jose Luis Munoz finished 2nd (17:07) to race winner Sherod Hardit of Queen Creek (17:04). The defending state champs, Catalina Foothills looks to have their one two punch running well with a two second spread between Mitch Kessler and Jeff Brown who finished 9th and 10th in 17:35 and 17: 37. Other guys in the top 10 were Steven Gregg of Sabino 3rd (17:21),Omar Hernandez, Rio Rico 4th (17:23), Edgar Sotomayor, Noglaes 5th (17:25), Bobby Evans, Rio Rico 6th (17:25), Chris Frazier, RioRico 7th (17:27).

George Young Elite Cross Country Invitational

The girls from Buena (ranked 25th in state) made a big statement this weekend when they finished 7th in the team race behind five of the top15 ranked teams in the state. Buena finished 4 points behind 13th ranked Mountain View. Buena sophomore Jodine Steemers was the first southern Arizona finisher across the line, she finished 6th with a time (18:09). Other top finishers for southern Arizona were Britney Vaughn, Mountain View 7th (18:18) ,Jill Magnuson, Salpointe 9th (18:23) and 13th Julia Restin, Salpointe (18:40).

On the boys side things were a little crazy in the team race with the boys from Mountain View (13th) coming up big with a win over 3rd ranked Mesa Mountain View. The Mountain View guys also left 6th ranked Corona Del Sol and 12th ranked Salpointe in their dust. This may have been the best race Marcus White has run while wearing a Mountain View uniform with a 2nd place finish in (14:42) and only losing to first place finisher Jim Walmsley of Horizon. Not far behind the top two finishers was Salpointe sophomore Steve Magnuson 3rd (14:50) who was followed by teammate Jackson Messer 6th (15:03).