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NXN Southwest Recap 2015 - DyeStat

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DyeStat.com   Nov 22nd 2015, 2:04am
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Mountain Vista rises to the top, barely

 

American Fork UT girls run to dominant win for regional title

 

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor


 

When the dust finally settled on a dramatic day at NXN Southwest on Saturday in Arizona, most of the questions were finally answered. 

 

Mountain Vista CO pulled off something of an upset on the boys side, squeaking past a very tightly grouped contingent of Utah teams by one point, 108 to 109 (Alpha T-Wolf/Timpanogos UT) to 109 (Lone Peak UT) to 121 (American Fork UT). 

 

Mountain Vista's win got a boost from its fourth and fifth guys -- Alex Fu (15:45) and Shayan Zarrin (15:47). At the Colorado state meet, Mountain Vista's top five were separated by 42 seconds. At regionals, Vista Nation XC tightened that up to 29 seconds. Zarrin, in particular, will get some major credit for Saturday's result. He fell and got trampled half a mile into the race, got up with a puncture wound in the back of his leg, and kept going. The team took him by a hospital after the race to get checked out.

 

RESULTS

 

But Mountain Vista was aiming to land on regionals day with its best race all season long. 

 

"This is what we went after this year," coach Jonathan Dalby said. "We went all in for NXR. The guys didn't want to back off for states (and rest) but wanted to run well (in Arizona)."

 

The team studied various rankings, used them as motivation, and studied how they might stack up. 

 

"I think the guys saw that they were fairly close and went in thinking 'We've got a chance,'" Dalby said. 

 

It's the first NXN trip for Mountain Vista.

 

One point back, Timpanogos edged Lone Peak on a sixth-runner tiebreaker (65-112) for the second automatic qualifying spot. 

 

At the front of the race, Utah's Class 5A state champion Casey Clinger of American Fork won the the race in 14:41 over Utah Class 4A champion Alek Parsons of Ogden. Paul Roberts of Lyons was third.

 

With just 13 points separating the top four teams, the NXN selection committee will have to take a hard look at whether the Southwest region deserves at-large berths and how many. American Fork, one of the traditional powers at NXN, is on the bubble at fourth and could be left out. 

 

Already out of it are the Davis UT boys, who won the Utah 5A title and came into the weekend ranked US#6. The Darts just didn't have a good enough day and finished seventh.

 

The girls team announcements were no less dramatic. The team awards had been presented and teams were in Nike's processing tent when it was discovered that Xavier Prep's athletes had been all entered as individuals and were not scored as a team. So when that was re-tallied the Arizona school was suddenly on the podium with an NXN auto qualifier next to girls champion American Fork. Davis, which thought it had the second spot and was announced as an auto qualifier, finished third -- just two points out of a sure trip to Portland. 

 

Now, for the second year in a row, coach Corbin Talley and his girls team will have to wait for the Nike committee to inform them whether they made it. The final team scores went like this: American Fork XC 59, GTD (Xavier Prep AZ) 119, Davis XC 121. 

 

Katie Rainsberger of Kadets (Air Academy CO) won the race for the secone year in a row, clocking 17:07. Lauren Gregory of Fort Collins was second and New Mexico 5A champion Amanda Mayoral was third. 

 

One of the meet's pre-race favorites, Allie Schadler of Rio Rico AZ, elected to not compete on Saturday. She has been dealing with some pain in her foot and decided not to push it. It is unknown whether she may try to run at Foot Locker West in two weeks instead.



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