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On September 10th, The Bacone Warrior Cross Country team posted in dominating fashion.Outdistancing all teams, with almost a perfect score at The MSU 6k Strohman Dental Stampede.
“Since the start of summer training, I’ve told the guys, with us being a vastly young team, we needed more than a few to step it up, in order, to be nationally competitive.” We had not just some of our guys do that, we had ALL of our guys do that.
Jackson Thomas (Navajo) was able to easily outdistance all competitors by a whopping straight-away, and then some. He hails originally from Naschitti, New Mexico. Jackson his a national caliber talent, and it will be exciting to see how his season continues.
Zech VanFleet (Cherokee and Navajo) was one athlete that didn’t get the recognition he deserved coming out of high school, but today he made my previous notions and thoughts I had about his natural intuition to win and compete spot on. Zech didn’t flinch running against the premier foreigners from such teams as Cameron. Coming home in 3rd overall.
Following that suit, came Eduardo Roa, finishing 3rd for the team. Eddy’s was a top state talent growing up in Arizona, and has shown he can run with anyone.
Justin Littleman (Navajo) was our 4th guy, and was also one of Arizona’s best runners last year, running for the famous state championship winning Page High School Team.
Jose Alfredo Pena became the surprise of the day, rounding out the top 5 for scoring, and earned the game ball for his fantastic performance.
Following within a second of Jose, was our very own, Tyron Yazzie (Navajo), Littleman’s high school teammate. Tyron is a textbook example of, “It’s better to finish strong, than to start strong,” as the season goes on for him while he ran at Page High School.
The Famous Kyle Sumatzkuku (Hopi), previously of Tuba City High School, rounded out our top 7. Kyle has been a hidden secret we picked up from Tuba City, and has done more than his share with making the biggest progress this summer amongst the team.
Solidifying our team as a new powerhouse to the sport, came not far behind, Terrance Nofire (Cherokee) Previously of Sequoyah High School, under the famed Coach Horsechief, and Hardin Montana’s Caleb Ware (Crow) has drastically improved within the month of first attending Bacone.
I think that the cross country teams from Hoping High in northeastern AZ deserve recognition. Especially their coach Mr Rick Baker. For the past 25 years Mr Baker has led his teams to the Arizona State Championships. Moreover, for the past 25 years his teams have won the state championship.that’s a quarter century of championships, all back to back. Not that is an accomplishment! Oh by the way, you mentioned that they almost got a perfect score. One year at the championships, Hoping did post a perfect score.