Xavier Cross Country traveled to Crossroads District Park in Gilbert for the Epic Tourneys XC Invitational today.

The Gators finished third out of twenty-nine teams.

1st -  56 Highland
2nd - 104 ALA-Queen Creek
3rd - 136 Xavier
4th - 156 ALA-West Foothills

Overall places include everyone who runs in the race, including those who run for a school that does not have at least five runners in the race.

Places that affect team scores include only the runners from schools who have at least five runners in the race. So, if Jane Doe's overall place is 10th, but for team scoring purposes she is 8th, that means that two runners who represented schools that did not have at least five runners in the race came in before her.

Some sports, like tennis and badminton, conduct challenges during practices to give athletes a chance to improve their ranking within a team. Challenges take place in Cross Country as well . . . every time they race.

In cross country, a primary goal for the better runners is to make the top seven, so they can run in the varsity races. Consequently, some of the girls running in Open races or Freshman races look for race times that will beat out one or more of the current top-seven runners.
 

After achieving varsity status, another goal comes into play -- pushing themselves to move up within the ranks of the top-seven. These two goals can be reached any time they participate in one of cross country's implied challenges . . . a race at a meet.

AVAANI LALLIAN
As a freshman, current sophomore Avaani Lallian DID NOT go out for cross country, but DID go out for Track, becoming Xavier's top 800m runner for the 2026 season. She wisely joined the Gator cross country team this fall, but without preseason cross country conditioning (she played track during the summer).

In the first race of the season, Lallian finished #5 in Xavier's top seven, 1:29 behind Xavier's top runner, Chantel Newman. In today's race, she finished #2 in the Gator top seven, 1:03 behind Newman.

Note: she did run #2 one other time, and she has finished races 40 and 50 seconds behind Newman.

JANE DOLASINSKI
Then there's FRESHMAN Jane Dolasinski. In her first race, the Western Equinox Invite, she took 2nd place in the freshman race and #9 for Xavier.

In her second race, the Woodbridge Classic, she took 4th place in a larger freshman race BUT #5 for Xavier. Challenge successful! Main goal accomplished! Xavier top-seven achieved.

Running varsity at the Desert Twilight meet was Dolasinski's graduation present, and she finished #5 again for Xavier.

In today's meet, she successfully moved up within the ranks of the top seven to #4.

In today's Open race, Xavier took second place out of ten teams.
Finishing in the top ten out of 100 runners were:
SR Sophia DeCara (6th)
JR Isabel Pires (7th)
JR Victoria Gomez del Campo (9th)
FR Nora Finn (10th)

Not far behind them were SO Isabella Romero (12th), SO Isabella Garcia (14th), and SR Victoria Spencer (16th).


Short Video of Footage From Epic Tourneys Invite