Desert Mountain girls win state championship

Desert Mounain senior Haley Wilkinson finished seventh in the state championship race and helped carry the team to a state title. (Photo credit/Allison Heron)

By George Zeliff
Mail

The Wolves have been knocking on the door for a while, but Desert Mountain High School finally won their first girls cross country state championship in school history this year.

Seniors Kaia LaHann (20:20.9) and Haley Wilkinson (20:21.9) both placed in the top-10 and powered Desert Mountain to victory.

LaHann finished fourth last year, and sixth this year. Wilkinson secured a seventh place finish this year, and head coach Kevin Kemmerle said he told them they needed to both place high to lead the Wolves to their first championship.

“Each of them were our top runner four times this year, or maybe five times,” Kemmerle said. “One week, one of them led, and the other girl was behind her, and then the other week they flip-flopped. They ran together all year, they worked out all year together, and I think that was kind of the difference. They leaned on each other a lot.”

The Desert Mountain girls team was the runner-up at state last year, but they placed behind 18-time champion Flagstaff by 96 points. The Wolves had one of the most experienced teams, with four seniors running the state course two times before, and three underclassmen stepped up big to help beat Flagstaff by 17 points this year.

Freshman Sylvia Harding (21:35.7) placed 26th overall and third on the team. Sophomore Lyla Yango (21:36.8) was right behind her in 27th place, and senior Ella Larsen (21:52.7) rounded out the scoring runners in 39th place.

“What made the win even more special is that we beat a really great team to get there,” Harding said. “Everyone on the team worked hard last summer and this season. We knew that we had a chance to win state this season and fortunately it happened.”

Harding was injured for half the season but ran a personal record (PR) at the Division II sectionals to help the Wolves qualify for state. The championship race took place at Cave Creek Golf Course, a notoriously difficult trek, in the middle of a hot afternoon, and Harding was only 10 seconds slower than her PR.

“This season felt a bit more challenging than usual with the amount of heat that we had been battling against,” LaHann said. “That ended up helping us towards the end when running against our competition at state. The girls team also used the workouts to train and stay close together in preparation for state. Even before the season started, we got together and knew that we had a very high chance.”

Sophomore Maren Newman (23:01.6) finished 74th and senior Ellie Weigel (24:10.7) finished 104th out of 173 runners. The Wolves knew as soon as they placed second last year they would have to push even harder to end up on top, but they didn’t add any extra practice. They were just more motivated during offseason workouts and summer conditioning, and finally saw it pay off with a championship title.

“I don’t think much has changed from last year to this year as far as training goes,” assistant coach Marie Reilly said. “We had a strong senior class this year. Kaia and Haley traded off leading in the races all season long. The seniors were very important in pulling off the state win. Their presence will be missed next season, but we have a very strong group of younger girls ready to continue to work and get their race times down.”

The Wolves will lose seven senior girls and four senior boys to graduation after the track and field season next spring, and the program has several more standout runners to come.

Kemmerle said the boys will have as many as 12 seniors next year, with Conor McGlynn leading the way. McGlynn (17:16.0) finished 22nd in the state championship and helped the boys team place 14th.

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