Miwok XC National Team Update by Bryan Moreno
A big congratulations goes out to our girls and boys runners who competed at the middle school national meet this past weekend at Tom Sawyer Park in Louisville, Kentucky. This was our third year taking our top runners to the meet. The lineup of teams participating was the deepest we have competed against yet. More details below:
Girls Team: Third Place
Dallastown Area Middle School from Texas took first place with 67 points, while Tavares Middle School from Florida took second place with 102 points. The Miwok girls team took third with 107 points, just 5 points away from the next placing. En route to their finish, the Miwok girls team outpaced perennial nationally recognized programs, including Taylor Road MS from Georgia, Worthingway MS from Ohio, Summit Ridge from Colorado, amongst others. Congratulations to the following runners: Chloe Dodd, Harper Farris, Chloe Font, Katelynn Goss, Kaleigh Kato, Chloe Mitchell, Reese Springhorn, and Eloise White. Dallastown and Tavares had to go through the gauntlet of the Miwok girls’ team. Any team that can do that deserves to be national champions. Our respect goes out to those two teams and their runners.
Boys Team: 1st Place; National Champions
The Miwok boys team outpaced several teams that are perennial nationally recognized programs, including Heathwood Hall from South Carolina, Taylor Road MS from Georgia, Summit Ridge MS from Colorado, and, again, Tavares MS from Florida. Tavares Middle School (131 points) and Heathwood Hall (115 points) trailed our Miwok boys’ team, who finished with a boy’s school division low of 62 points. Congratulations to the following runners: Wyatt Benton, Connor Corcoran, Keller Douglas, Josh Eder, Colin Labson, Gavin Martin, Christian McCabe, Adam Strimaitis, Jakob Pease, Roland Pelia, and Noah Wilson.
All – American Runners
Our top two runners finished among the top 25 finishing runners, earning ALL-AMERICAN honors. Noah Wilson (18th Place) and Gavin Martin (17th Place) led the boys’ team for Miwok. Gavin and Noah join Miwok MS alumni Jayden Villa, Strummer Beckett, Enzo Martinez, and Elias Thronson, accounting for six All – Americans in program history.
3rd Place State Division
If each state were a team, despite the school or club they may run for, California finished in 3rd place for the boys division. The top seven (7) runners from each state are scored for their state as a team. Of the top seven runners from California, six were from Miwok MS. First place honors went to Kentucky (60 pts.), followed by Florida (90 pts), with California (119 pts.) taking 3rd. Again, with this is very significant when considering that six of the seven runners were from Miwok MS.
Congratulations to: Pelia, Corcoran, Pease, Labson, Martin, Wilson
In the three years our cross-country program has participated at the National meet in Louisville, we are honored to have six (6) top five team finishes, with one 5th place, two third place finishes, and now three first place National Championships. The 2025 boys team joins the 2024 girls’ team, and the 2023 boys’ team in accomplishing this great honor.
The only way to compete at this level is to help cultivate and embrace a team environment that prioritizes ambition, humility, courage, bravery, resilience, selflessness, an unrelenting self-confidence, leadership, and most of all, an eagerness to “Give To Others.” Every runner who wears our uniform represents our school community with these great values in focus.
