Competing as one school, one team, the Brophy/Xavier Mountain Biking team headed up to the Ubuntu Mountain Biking Trail in Payson to compete in the Arizona Cycling Association (ACA) Race #3. Brophy/Xavier took third out of seven teams in the South Conference Division 1.

The girls' part of the team is coached by Kate Hill, parent of  two mountain biking Xavier grads, previously an assistant coach, and now head coach. She is assisted by former Xavier mountain biker, Hailey Schwartz ('22).

Sprawled out at the base of the hill where most of the race would take place was a large parking area, a place for camping, a starting-line area, a finish-line chute, a place for vendors, a "team pits" area for team canopies and storing the bikes, a place for race-staff parking, and a section of the racing trail winding through it all.

The entire event was very well run as race-staff personnel were everywhere, including monitoring specific areas of the racing trail.

The weekend weather brought some abnormal challenges that were handled perfectly by the ACA staff. The ACA consists of two conferences, the north and the south. Normally, one conference races on Saturday; the other conference on Sunday. However, because of the threat of a Sunday downpour, both conferences would have to race on Saturday. Fortunately, Saturday's weather was perfect, at least in the morning session.

To accommodate both conferences racing on the same day, they cut the length of the races in half and scheduled the South conference to race in the morning and the North conference in the afternoon.

 

With 14 categories of races (e.g., Girls Varsity, Girls JV1, etc.), races are grouped into waves of three or four categories. There are two middle-school waves, two high-school boys waves, and one high-school girls wave. 

The high school girls rode in the fourth wave. At 10:30, the Girls Varsity and JV1 races took off from the start line. Three minutes later, the Girls JV2 race started, and after another three minutes, the Girls Freshman race began. Fifty-four minutes later they would start the next wave (Boys JV2 and Freshman races).

Xavier only competed in two categories: JV2 and Freshman. Both races were 6.3 miles long, consisting of three two-mile laps. Normally, the JV2 and Freshman race are around twice as long.

Agnes Findlay took 4th place out of 11 participants in the JV2 race, scoring 472 points and earning a medal for being in the top five.

Maizie Mason took 9th out of 14 participants in the Freshman race, scoring 434 points.

A team score consists of the top eight scores within the team, but each gender must be represented by at least two individual scores. In Saturday's competition, Findlay and Mason contributed to the Brophy/Xavier team score.

Elizabeth Villalba (427 pts) and Dylan Haley (402 pts) rode in the Freshman race. Eilis Challoner was in 8th place after the first lap in the JV2 race, but she had to drop out because of physical issues.

Below is video I took in four different sections of the race: the start, an area in the latter part of the first lap, a location a little less than half way through the second lap, and the finishing chute. 

In addition, you can check out a slide show of pictures taken by Coach Hill.

The Brophy/Xavier team has two more races this season: two weekends from now in Race #4 at McDowell Mountain Regional Park, Fountain Hills and four weekends from now for the State Championship at Wren Arena, Fort Huachuca.

Link to the 2026 Race Calendar (includes all five Race Flyers and Results links)