Nick Scheske is a student journalist at the Walter Cronkite school at Arizona State University assigned to cover the Desert Vista High School Boys cross country team.

Cross country runners from all across Arizona gathered under a cloudless sky on a hot, 90-degree Wednesday afternoon at Kiwanis park to compete in the Tempe City Championships.

The meet was won by Demetris Love, a senior runner on Desert Vista. The Thunder finished with seven runners finish in the top 11. Noah Jordan, Sammy Van Alstine, Jacob Cardon and Vincent Larente rounded out the top five Desert Vista runners; taking third, fourth, seventh and ninth place respectively, making the team’s score 24 points

“I’m always proud of Demetris," said Desert Vista’s head coach, Chris Hanson. "I think deep down he just wanted to win this race… He saw the opportunity and he took it.”

Love described the feeling of winning simply as: “It was nice.”

Last season, the Tempe City championships were won by Lee Nasewytewa, a Desert Vista runner who now runs cross country at Arizona State University.

Hanson said a big difference between this year’s meet and last year's is that the upcoming Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational was not scheduled directly after the meet last year. “Lee probably got after it last year," he said.

Hanson was not quite sure how long the streak of Desert Vista runners winning this meet goes back. “Hobbs (Habtamu) Cheney won it, so this will be three in a row, it might even be more than three, to be honest with you," he said.

According to Hanson, the team brought over 50 guys to compete in the race. Hanson also noted that the team has another race on Saturday: The Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational in Walnut, California. This is a very important meet for not only the varsity runners, but also the JV runners.

Hanson said that the top-seven Desert Vista runners will go and run in the Mt. SAC varsity race and the next best seven runners will run in the JV race, which, according to Hanson, is called the JV national championships. Hanson said that the team’s focus right now is mainly on the state meet on Nov. 16.

Hanson hoped that the runners will not go all out, to prepare for Mt. SAC on Saturday. Hanson also understands that the runners will want to race. 

“Anytime you get in a race, it’s hard to tell a kid, ‘Don’t go too fast,’" he said. "It’s such a difficult thing mentally that I kind of gave them some leeway.”

Nicolo Perciballi, the Desert Vista captain, said, “It was tough holding back.”

Love agreed. “At the last half-mile that race mentality kicked in," he said.

Hanson saw other advantages to the race, though.

“The one thing I like about this course and this meet is that it sets us up for the state meet because it’s similar. It’s flat-ish for the first mile and hillier on the back two,” Hanson said. “It does make for a state simulation.”

Hanson said one big thing that separates this course from other Arizona courses is “we don’t have a lot of courses where we can get on hills.”

The Thunder runners also noted the hills of this course. Love said the hardest part of the course was “that one hill that hits you twice.”

Perciballi described this same hill as “the giant hill just around mile one and mile two. That hill is a killer, that really filters out people.”

Hanson mentioned that this race would be the last race of the season for a lot of the younger runners.

Perciballi was very proud of the team’s performance.

“These guys crushed it, I’m incredibly proud of them, watching these younger guys come out here and just bring it with the race," he said. "I’m just so proud."