Campo Verde's Rylan Stubbs begins cool down after winning 3rd Chandler Invite title (Photo by AzPreps365).

 

Campo Verde's boys repeated and Mesa Mtn. View's girls unseated Chandler as team champs at the 23rd Chandler Invitational Cross Country Meet at Tumbleweed Park.

Runner suffered through miserable conditions with temperatures at 93 degrees and humidity hovering around 50 percent. Normally a little drier this time of year. The conditions didn't detour Campo Verde junior Rylan Stubbs from notching his third consecutive win in the invitational's non-traditional format. Races are contested for each grade level -- freshman, sophomore, junior and senior with the top individual from a school scoring for his team in each race. Stubbs first-place finish in the junior race helped Campo Verde repeat with team total of 19.

Stubbs shaved 14 seconds off his winning time from last year navigating the 5K course in 16 minutes, 44 seconds. Freshman Anthony Cox (9th), sophomore Kenny Edwards (2nd) and senior Zack Prusse (6th) rounded out the runners who scored for Campo. Top time among all the male runners went to two-time champ Carson Klepinger. The Mountain View senior's time was 16:15. The other male race winners were Perry freshman Austin Hutchings and Desert Mountain sophomore Connor Heron.

Mountain View's girls did not produce a first-place finisher in any of the races, but totaled 20 points to garner the team title among freshman Abigail Welch (2nd); sophomore Elizabeth Christensen (3rd); junior Kailey Welch (3rd) and senior Aryanna Tahilliani (12th). Second-place went to Chandler (36) and third was Corona del Sol (64).

Girls race winners saw one repeat as Chandler junior Morgan Foster notched her secon win in three tries. Foster's time of 18:23 was the best by far with the next closest time among all runners belonging to Chandler senior Kerri Welch (19:16) and Chandler junior Becca Taylor (19:17).The other female winners were Perry freshman Kylie Miller, Rincon University sophomore Grace Driskill and Kerri Welch.

Many of the same teams and others with a pedigree in the sport will descend on Tumbleweed Park in two weeks for the annual Ojo Rojo Invitational. The format of that invite is traditional with each school's top five finishers scoring.

KING OF THE MOUNTAIN INVITE

Highland took leave from competing in the Chandler Invitational this year and Saturday morning bright and early claimed the boys and girls titles at the annual King of the Mountain Invite hosted by Red Mountain High at Long Bow Golf Club.

Highland's boys totaled 40 points to edge runner-up Hamilton (42). Scoring for Highland were Will Daschbach (3rd), Leo Daschbach (5th), DAllin Archibald (7th), Caden Resendez (12th) and Riley Cullinan (13th).  Hamilton, which also had competed recently at the Chandler Invite, featured the individual winner in the varsity competition -- senior David Nelson. Nelson covered the 5K course in 16 minutes, 17 seconds, bettering runner-up Sammy Van Alstine of Desert Vista (16:36). Nelson finished eighth last season in the 6A state meet.

In the varsity girls race, Highland sophomore Caroline McLeskey led the Hawks to the title with a first-place time of 19:09. That was more than a minute faster than runner-up Nicole Hemmerlin of Red Mountain. Highland finished with 32 points, followed by Red Mountain (39) and Hamilton (53). Also scoring for Highland: Rachel McCleve (4th), Caroline Sloan (7th), Ashley Mask (9th) and Breana Hanks (11th).