Chugiak girls win cross-country running state title

By Staff report

Chugiak standout Campbell Peterson capped her senior season in perfect fashion.

Peterson used a season-best time of 19 minutes, 16 seconds to win her first individual state title and helped the Mustangs repeat and win their second straight Division I girls team title during the ASAA/First National Bank Cross-Country Running State Championships Saturday at Bartlett High School in Anchorage.

Peterson, the runner-up at the 2021 state meet, won all seven races she competed in as a senior. In her final two years with the program, Peterson has nine wins and finished second four times.

Peterson was one of three Mustangs to finish in the top 10. Fellow senior Addison Capozzi was third with a time of 19:47. Junior Skyler Belmear was ninth with a time of 20:09.

Senior Kiley Dennis (16th), sophomore Alliyah Fields (18th) and sophomore Allison Macy (20th) also posted top 20 finishes.

Chugiak finished with 42 total points in the team standings, 32 better than runner-up Juneau-Douglas.

Junior Ava Trambath led Eagle River in the girls race with a 14th-place finish.

Eagle River also placed a pair of runners in the top 10 of the Division I boys race. Senior Henry Michener was fifth with a time of 16:49, and senior Damien Borchardt was ninth with a mark of 17:05.

Colony’s Matthew Rongitsch, Zac Cheyette and Tobias Buchanan all held their positions and made history, becoming the first teammates to sweep the top three spots of a Division I boys race.

Rongitsch won his first state cross-country running title with a time of 16 minutes, 13 seconds. Cheyette followed with his runner-up finish and time of 16:29. Buchanan edged South Anchorage junior Blaise Boyer at the finish line to clock a time of 16:39 and secure the top-three sweep for the Knights.

Colony finished with 43 total points to win its first boys cross-country running team title since 1998.

The Grace Christian boys and Seward girls earned the Division II team titles. The Wrangell boys and Haines girls finished at the top of the Division III team standings.