High school cross-country: American Fork gets 2 top performing runners, Lone Peak wins 3rd consecutive title, Herriman wins 1st championship in 12 years in 6A state meet

Wednesday’s state meet featured a showdown between Region 2 boys’ individual champion Jackson Spencer of Herriman, and Region 3 champion Kaden Evans of American Fork.
Evans finished second in last years meet, finishing only behind his teammate and Cavemen phenom Daniel Simmons. This year Evans was hungry for the first place finish.
The race stayed close between Evans and Spencer, with both runners finishing under 15 minutes. Evans broke away toward the end, claiming first place with a time of 14:45.21, while Spencer followed in second at 14:51.08.
“It was amazing.,” Evans said. “The first mile we went out really conservative, and when we did I thought, ‘We can destroy the back half and really race on it.’”
“I thought the last five steps (Spencer) was gonna pass me the whole time. I was just digging, finding that 10th gear.”
While American Fork didn’t win the team race, it got both top individual performers with Skye Jensen winning the girls state meet with a time of 17:35.60. Jensen sported a similar strategy to Evans. She started out conservative, happy to let someone else take the lead while finding a higher gear later in the race.
“Just trying to pick it up in the last mile,” Jensen said when asked about her strategy. “There was some nerves. It just felt motivating knowing I could do it and catch up with her.”
While American Fork’s Evans won the individual race it was dethroned by Herriman, which won its first boys cross country championship since 2012. It was a quick turnaround for the Mustangs’ program after hiring Doug Soles three years ago. Herriman finished ninth at the state meet in 2021 and Soles has helped turn Herriman into a national threat.
Now that it has the state championship trophy, Herriman is turning its focus to Nike Cross Regionals on November 23 and hopes to win a national title at Nike Cross Nationals in December.
“We knew we had a special team coming in,” Soles said. “We’ve had a few guys that have struggled with some health issues, so we’re just hoping to be 100% when we get to (Nike Cross Nationals) and make sure that we’re ready to compete for the national title. That’s been our goal, and the rest of the meets are prep and making sure we’re ready to do what we need to do when we need to do it.”
While the boys meet welcomed another champion, the girls meet saw another dominant performance from Lone Peak to secure its three-peat state championship. Lone Peak’s Maya Bybee and Zoey Nilsson finished second and third respectively, with three runners finishing seventh, ninth and 11th. Lone Peak had a team score of 29, the next closest was Riverton with 63.
“Our our mantra going in to the state meet was ‘manage the moment’,” said Lone Peak coach Ryan Bybee. “We know on this course you’ve got a lot of hills and it can sometimes be intimidating, and they just had to manage the moment and stay together as a group. We’re super proud of them and we’re glad that it’s like becoming a standard for them.”
Team scores
Girls individual results
Team scores
Boys individual results