Chinle's Jumbo 4-peats at cool, course-altered state XC meet
November 5, 2011 by Les Willsey, AZPreps365
The 2011 state cross country championships had a little bit of everything on Saturday at Cave Creek Golf Course.
An altered course. An unusually cool race day. A rare four-time individual champion as Chinle's Rolonda Jumbo raced to yet another title. A couple more individual repeats by Xavier's Sarah Fakler and Cibola's Bernie Montoya. A record-low winning score in the big school division by Fakler and her Xavier teammates (22 points). And a team title for the first tme for long-time Highland coach Dave Montgomery and his boys squad.
Such was four hours of races and a much longer day for meet officials who had to make adjustments as the sun rose around 7 a.m. after overnght rain forced alterations to the Cave Creek Golf Course layout. Runners were treated to about a 20-degree drop in normal race day temperature. Runners ran in mid-50s to low- 60s temperatures rather than mid-70s to mid-80s.
The story of the day was Jumbo, who as she has done four years in a row overwhelmed here Division III (3A) competition. She recorded a 45-second win over runner-up Diana Garcia of Tempe. In past years Jumbo won by 14 seconds, 42 seconds and 75 seconds.
With her entire family looking on, even a set of grandparents who had not seen her run before, Jumbo posted the second-best time of the day by a female. She covered the 3.1-mile course in 18 minutes and 27 seconds. Jumbo joins Tuba City's Janice Posey (1982-85) and Monument Valley's Danielle Bornfeld (1989-92) as the only runners in state history to win four titles.
Jumbo made it a point to welcome in her teammates as they finished and after an anguishing wait found out she had reason to smile a second time. Chinle edged Page by three points to regain the team title (74-77). Page beat Chinle by four points last year.
The only runner to better Jumbo on Saturday was Xavier's Fakler. Fakler won the Division I race with ease, besting Highland's Tory Haberman by 27 seconds. Fakler scorched the course finishing in 17:48. Xavier placed first, third (Laura Orlie), fourth (Breanna Perrone), sixth (Lauren Kinzle) and eighth (Samantha Mattics). The Gators' and previous big-school low was 31 points set two years ago. It was Xavier's fifth straight title.
"I ran a normal race," Fakler said. "I run for my team, and they're always there for me. I was trying for some splits on the different course that I didn't make It's nice to win as a team again. We're looking to other things now, getting to the NIke nationals."
Perhaps the most emotional point of the day came with the result of the first race when Highland captured the boys title. David Graham led the way finishing third and his pack-happy mates came in at 10th (Logan Woolf), 16th (Manuel Aguilar), 25th (Weston Jones) and 27th (Alex Fabiano).
"This has been a long-time coming," Montgomery said. "We've knocked at the door a lot of times. I don't know if our guys could run faster. They've run for each other, for me and the other coaches."
Cibola's Montoya also repeated as individual champ. Montoya's winning time was 15:46, but he was pressed a bit by by Rincon's Ryan Sliva and Highland's Graham. They were 11 and 13 seconds back of Montoya, respectively.
Montoya did not run in sectionals last week (same for Fakler and Division III boys champ Jake Wynn.) They sat out and banked on teammates qualifying them for state. Not a huge gamble for any of those squads.
"I had fresh legs and was mentally rested," Montoya said. "There's more pressure on you as a defending champion. I think other runners were waiting for me to make a move. I 'm not a front runner, but today I felt I had to be."
Other individual champions and team champions that emerged Saturday:
In Division II girls, Flagstaff sophomore Tatiana Gillick paced the Eagles to the team title. Gillick won the race with the third best time of the day overall -- 18:29. Gillick waged a tight battle most of the way with Sahuaro's Chloe Newell. Gillick pulled away in the final quarter mile. Sahuaro finished second behind Flag for team honors.
Division II boys came down to another showdown between McClintock senior Eduardo Roa and Maricopa senior Chris Lessard. They, too, were close most of the way, but Roa pulled away at the end to win by 14 seconds with a time of 16:03. Canyon del Oro won the team title with 97 points to outdistance runner-up Ironwood Ridge (143).
With the spectacular Billy Orman of Tuba City graduated, Division III was wide open and Saguaro's Wynn took advantage. With a half dozen runners jockeying for the top position, Wynn pulled away with the best time of the day for boys in any division -- 15:39. Chinle took team honors with 71 points and was followed by Rio Rico (86) and Tuba City (95).
Division IV was dominated team-wise by incumbent Hopi. Hopi won the boys and girls with scores of 51 and 39, respectively. Individual championship went to runners from southern Arizona. Pusch Ridge's Sarah MacDonald won for the girls (18:58). That was nearly a full minute better than Horizon Honors Mikaela Martin, the runner-up. The boys title went to St. Augustine Catholic's Nico Montanez, who finished in 16:16.