Park City High School girls 4A cross country runners getting a team top ten at the Utah State Championships. Photo: Kate Johnson

The 4A Girls 5K race, with 150 runners, had the highest Park City placement finish from sophomore Sonja Preston coming in sixth with a time of 18 minutes, 59.2 seconds

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The Cross Country Running Team from Park City High School sent some of their varsity athletes to represent the Miners at the Utah State Championships held in Rose Park at the Regional Athletic Center on Tuesday.

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The 4A Girls 5K race, with 150 runners, had the highest Park City placement finish from sophomore Sonja Preston coming in sixth with a time of 18 minutes, 59.2 seconds.

Preston’s mom has recently retired from her near 20-year tenure as a science teacher for the Park City School District. The family spends summers hiking on the East Coast, and Sonja has switched from alpine ski racing to cross country running.

Sonja told TownLift, “It feels great being the top finisher, but what’s also super awesome and not talked about enough is how hard all of my teammates worked to get to the meet as well. We all ran the workouts together. Everyone on the team has an amazing work ethic and really makes running fun; that’s what motivates me to train hard, not getting medals or recognition, those are still fun though! Our great team makes it even harder to say goodbye to the seniors, and Kaylee (Hale) in particular is one of the most optimistic, kind, and resilient people on the team. Everyone looks up to her, and it will be hard not to have her back next year.”

Kaylee Hale came in 12th with a finish time of 19:12.6 in her final competition as a high school cross country runner, capping off a consistently fast student-athlete career.

The combined performances of the girls landed the Miners as a team into the top 10 at the state championships.

For the Miners boys, sophomore Sebastian Crossland finished their 5K course coming in at 17:29.1 which was 77th out of 150 runners. The second-highest placing Parkite boy was Junior Trey Hudson at 17:47.3 and 96th place.

Hudson, who takes advantage of splitting his time between family on the East Coast, enjoys the versatility of training there, at sea level, compared to running in Park City, at elevation, where he’s also a cross country ski racer. State Championships was a great way to end his first year on the running team at Park City High School.

He told TownLift, “The event was awesome and had a very bright and exciting crowd. There were a ton of people there, it was incredibly fun to race, and I’m glad I had the opportunity to do so.”