It was an eventful Division 2 state cross country meet Friday morning with three major happenings. Depending on your slant, rank them as you will.

First. Flagstaff's girls reeled of its sixth championship in a row. Second. Gilbert High halted Flagstaff's boys' title streak at five pulling off the upset and in the process captured the school's first-ever boys cross country crown. Third. Casteel's Dayton Carlson capped his career with an individual title, blowing away the competition and turning in the best boys time in any of the four state meets Thursday and Friday at Crossroads Park in Gilbert.

Flagstaff's girls performance in winning the team title was per usual, led by Mia Hall. Hall, who finished third at state last year, became just the third girls runner at state meets the past two days to run the 5K course in under 18 minutes. Hall's time was 17:54.6.

                                     Flagstaff sophomore Mia Hall wraps up her winning run in the D2 girls race. (Azpreps365 photo)

That's a little better than 12 seconds faster than Casteel runner-up Kyah Zurek and 14 seconds better than Campo Verde's Clara Jones. Of the top 10 individuals competing five were sophomores or freshmen - Hall and Catalina Foothills Taylor McCue are sophomores and Zurek, Jones and Millennium's Landen LeBlond (8th place) are freshmen. The rest of the top-10 finishers:  Cactus Shadows Merit Thompson (fifth); Flagstaff's Allie Thurgood  (sixth); Catalina Foothills Tenley Hughes (7th); Canyon del Oro's Delaney Kaminski (ninth) and  Marana's Shania Santos (10th).

Flagstaff's total of 41 was its lowest (best) of the six titles in a row it has won. The Eagles' scoring places after Hall and Thurgood were 10th, 12th and 13th - Alyssa Harris, Breana Biggambler and Brooke Golightly, respectively.

                            Flagstaff's girls win their sixth D2 title in a row as coach Trina Painter gets a photo as well (AZPreps photo)

The head-turning team moment belonged to Gilbert. The Tigers, with a lineup of four juniors and a sophomore, placed third, sixth, 16th, 27th and 36th. Putting two runners in the top 10 was helpful and the makeup of places in the final mile or so by No. 5 runner Leo Freestone added up to victory. Gilbert totaled 77 points, Flagstaff was runner-up with 92, followed by Campo Verde (135), Ironwood Ridge (143) and Casteel (182). Gilbert won its sectional last week as did Flagstaff, Ironwood Ridge and Sunrise Mountain. 

"We had a really good race, a good season," Gilbert coach Fermin Villagran said. "Our 4th and 5th guys stepped up. The whole team wanted it. We knew Flagstaff was good, but our guys were on a mission."

Gilbert's scoring runners were Terrence Keyes (third), Javier Garcia (6th), Jefferson Sees (15th), Oscar Gregorio (23rd) and Freestone (30th).

                                         Gilbert runners pose with the school's first boys cross country championship trophy. (Azpreps365 photo)

With eight runners in the D1 meet breaking the 16-minute mark and three in the D3 meet Thursday, it was left to Carlson to try and better the marks in front of him. Brophy's Xander Black's time of 15:34.6 was the best in D1 and Rio Rico's Roshan Miranda edged that (15:32.4) in D3. Carlson became the third runner in as many races to surpass the previous top run and did so convincingly. With noone pushing him the bulk of the race, Carlson glided across the finish at 15:06.1. That was neary 1-minute, 15 seconds faster than his winning time on the same course the week before to win his sectional.

"I had to push myself since I was running alone," Carlson said. "This had to be my best race of season considering it meant winning state and I had PR (personal record) by one second."

Carlson made incremental strides at state meets on his way to his first win. He placed 35th in 2017, 18th in 2018 and seventh in 2019. Other top-10 finishers in Friday's D2 race: Flagstaff's Max Davis (2nd), Ironwood Ridge's Logan Marek (4th; Millennium's Alex Rafferty (5th), Agua Fria's Oscar Gonzales (7th), Cactus Shadows Jason Lundgren (8th), Sunrise Mountain's Justin Pace (9th) and Flagstaff's Ryan Hatch (10th).