NEVADA STATE MEET

North Sweeps Team and Individual Titles in Reno; Somerset Sky Pointe Sweeps 4A Titles

Story and Photos by John Dixon for DyeStat

The Nevada state cross country championship for the 2A, 3A and 5A classes were held Saturday at the challenging Rancho Rafael Park in Reno (4,500 feet elevation). The 4A Championships were held at the equally challenging Veterans Park course in Boulder City. 

One of the day's biggest surprises came in the 5A girls final where Amaya Aramini of Bishop Manogue ran 18:51 to defeat favored Eleanor Raker of Galena. 

Raker, who beat Aramini at the regional meet by 15 seconds, led most of the race. But Aramini used a final surge to go by Raker and sprint to the finish, winning by 20 seconds. 

Carson put five runners in the top 10 to seal the team title with 29 points. 

In the 5A boys race, Eric Ortega-Gammill of Reno bounced back from a fourth-place finish at the regional meet and won the state individual crown in16:31.

Ortega-Gammill overtook Spanish Springs' Peyton Miller in the final 1,000 meters and won the race by a second. Carson Wetzel of Shadow Ridge, the Southern regional champion, was 16 seconds back in third place. 

Spanish Springs scored 67 points to win the team championship. 

At the Class 4A finals in Boulder City, it was a coronation party for Somerset Sky Pointe, which swept the boys and girls team titles. 

The boys scored 35 points. The girls did it with 19. 

Nathan Nations of Sierra Vista defended his individual title, but not without a fight. At the mile there was a pack of eight runners within a second. Nations was in command by the 2-mile mark and never looked back, winning by 13 seconds in 16:52. Sky Pointe's Jack Medina was second. 

Elliot Davidson led Somerset Sky Pointe's girls with her individual victory in 19:47. She led from start to finish and beat Legacy's Aislin McMahon by 17 seconds. The Eagles went 1-3-4-5-6. 

Davidson had been 23rd at the state meet as a sophomore and sixth last year as a junior.

Austin Key of North Valleys won the 3A boys race in 16:35. 

Key broke open a close race in the final 1,000 meters. Up to that point, Key, Elko’s Braylon Baggett and Moapa Valley’s Mordechai Yadegar II were within two seconds of one another. 

Key won by nine seconds. Baggett was second and Yadegar finished third.

Spring Creek won the title with 46 points.  

One of the more dominating performances of the meet came from Lyla Landa of South Tahoe. She led from start to finish and won by 70 seconds, in 19:42.

Tahoe-Truckee put five in the top 14 and scored 26 points on the way to the program's fourth girls title and first since 2016. 

In Class 2A, where a team's top four runners factor into the scoring, North Tahoe swept. 

The boys scored 19 points and the girls put up 11. 

Noah McMahan of Incline won the individual title for the second straight year in 16:35. Second-place finisher Ben Finlinson of North Tahoe was 14 seconds back in 16:49. All four of North Tahoe's scorers were in the top nine. 

North Tahoe's Britta Johnson repeated as the individual champion, running 19:50. Her twin sister Niki was second in 20:42 as the team put all seven of its runners in the top nine.

State Champions - 

Class 5A - Spanish Springs boys 67 points, Carson girls 29 points - RESULTS

Class 4A - Somerset Sky Pointe boys 35 points, Somerset Sky Pointe girls 19 points - RESULTS 

Class 3A - Spring Creek boys 46 points, Tahoe-Truckee girls 26 points - RESULTS

Class 2A - North Tahoe boys 19 points, North Tahoe girls 11 points (scoring 4) - RESULTS 

All-Class Merge (Class 5A, 3A and 2A)