Last Tuesday at Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City, the North Summit Girls Cross Country Team won the 2A state title.
The Braves topped second-place Grand County by a wide margin. North Summit’s highest individual finisher was senior Chayden Sargent with a time of 19:16.8. Kanab’s Kenidee Glazier won the individual race with a time of 18:51.1.
The Braves four other points-scoring runners all finished in the top 10. Sargent’s siblings, Thea and Isabell, finished in sixth and ninth place as freshman and seniors, respectively.
The title is North Summit’s fifth in a row, the second five-peat under head coach Dave Peck. The Braves also won five-straight titles from 2013-17. Peck has led the North Summit Girls Track Team to 15 state titles in the last 16 seasons.
“I had a really good group,” Peck said. “This was a pretty experienced group. … To be able to win five in a row again was special.”
Peck said the accomplishment is remarkable because all of the turnover at the preps level. He added that all of his runners focused on doing their best and not on winning the individual event.
“We decided to go up to Afton, Wyoming, for a race, and sure enough the girls won,” Peck said. “So they just kept the ball rolling right from the beginning of the year when they realized we have a good team.”
North Summit won the Afton meet and all their meets with strictly 2A competition. Their 10 meet season began with the Park City Twilight event in mid-August.
“They were pretty emotional thinking this was their last cross country meet,” Peck said about his senior runners. “But, they were quite excited that they were able to continue this tradition of winning for North summit.”
Peck believes the Braves will be able to shoot for six-straight titles next season. Four of their five state points-getters will be returning.
“We have a really good group coming back for next year,” Peck said. “There’s a couple girls that were our eighth and ninth runners that I think really want to be able to run at state. I think that’s going to be a big motivating factor for them.”
The Braves are also excited about their boys team moving forward. North Summit finished ninth at state, with North Sevier taking the title. The Braves top boys runner, Bob Guest, is a sophomore and finished 28th individually with a time of 17:57.1.
“I just had a couple of seniors, a junior and these nine freshmen,” Peck said. “These freshmen boys are so excited about running cross country, and they said, ‘Before we graduate, we’re going to have a state champion.’”
Peck has been thrilled with the participation on both the boys and girls sides. He said about 10% of the entire school came out for the cross country teams this fall, and he hopes that number will increase as North Summit experiences success.
“It’s the team and culture that we’re developing here,” Peck said. “They want to be a part of a winning team, and they’ll go out and try it.”