Shadow Ridge XC teams have depth to contend at 5A Regionals

The Shadow Ridge High School cross country teams are sure to make some noise at the Southern 5A Regionals on Oct. 30. Senior Ryen Hughes ran the 12th-fastest 5K amongst 5A girls with a time of 19:28.4 on Sept. 25. That ranks ninth in the Southern 5A, but she’s not the only Lady Mustang atop the regional rankings.

SRHS sophomore Mallory Anderson ran the 17th-best 5K in 5A at the CSN Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 3. It’s the 12th-best time in the Southern 5A. Freshman Mallory Belcher also ran her fastest 5K on Saturday, nearly breaking the 20-minute mark for the 22nd-fastest time in 5A and a 13th-best Southern 5A finish. Sophomore Macee Okuda rounds out a strong Lady Mustang regional roster, running the 22nd-fastest 5K in the Southern 5A at the CSN Invitational on Saturday.

“We have been very blessed with great families. Many of our young runners have had older siblings that have come through our program and know the expectations to be good runners,” SRHS boys head coach Robert Nelson said. 

Shadow Ridge also features five boys with top-40 5K times amongst 5A competitors, led by junior Ronin Belt, who ran 16:44 at the CSN Invitational on Saturday. That’s the 26th fastest time in 5A competition and a 16th-ranked finish in the Southern 5A. Not far behind him is freshman James Hebb, who finished the CSN Invitational just under five seconds behind Belt for the 17th-best time in the region this year.

“James Hebb has been crushing it as a freshman and has broken our 2.5-, 3-mile and 5K school records for a freshman,” Nelson said. “We are headed into the end of the season and hope to peak and be very competitive at regionals and state.” 

Senior Jason Powell and junior Max Rook also finished within five seconds of each other in Las Vegas on Saturday, posting the 20th and 21st 5K times in the Southern 5A, respectively. Junior Luka Stosich nearly broke the 17-minute mark to post the 24th-best time amongst Southern 5A runners this season at the CSN Invitational on Saturday.

“We are a very deep team where many of our top runners do what I call ‘pack running’—pulling each other to the finish. Other teams have a few faster runners, but my goal is to increase all seven boys in order to push slower runners back in points. 

The Mustangs have four more competitors with top-31 Southern 5A times in 5Ks, all posted at their most recent meet on Saturday, so the roster is very deep. The boys’ biggest competition will come from Somerset Academy Sky Pointe, which features seven runners who’ve posted 5K times in the top-25.

The Mustang cross country teams are at the Lake Mead Invitational in Boulder City on Saturday, Oct. 10. They return to Las Vegas on Wednesday, Oct. 14, for the Centennial High School Weekday run at 4 p.m. There’s one more race scheduled for Oct. 16 in Henderson before the 5A Regionals at the end of the month.