Three Meet Records Fall at Chinle-Hosted Canyon de Chelly Invitational

Three meet records fell at the Canyon de Chelly Invitational held at Chinle Market, and Chinle senior Janessa Segay broke the girls 5K course mark with a winning time of 19:03.0 while Chinle collected the girls varsity team title with 52 points. The meet was hosted by Chinle High School and ran on a hilly, higher-elevation 5K course on a hot sunny day.

Segay, bib 3612 and listed as a senior, paced the field at 6:08 per mile and beat the previous course record by seven seconds, surpassing former Wildcat Rolanda Jumbo’s mark. “I’m more surprised about winning my home meet,” Segay said. “I ran a 19:03 at the finish line, and it surprised me a lot because, honestly, I thought I was going to run in 20 minutes." She added, “I actually PRd here with it being higher elevation and with it being a hilly course.” Segay entered the meet undefeated for the season and earlier logged first-place finishes at the Hopi Invite and the Flagstaff Peaks Invitational.

Chinle’s team depth showed behind Segay as the Wildcats placed five runners in the top 21 to secure 52 points and the team title. The meet scoring lines show Chinle atop the girls standings with 52 points and scoring paces that produced a team aggregate reflective of consistent sub-22 minute finishes by scoring runners.

Page Sand Devils supplied two of the three meet records; Page junior Symond Martin was the most prominent, winning his race in 15:49.9 and becoming the only runner under 16 minutes at the Chinle meet. Martin’s time shattered the previous course record by 17 seconds. “It feels really cool because I don’t have a course record yet (until today),” Martin said. “Every race I plan on getting faster and faster,” he added, and looked ahead: “We’re going down to the Valley next week and I just want to show them what I can do down there.” The meet announcements credit Page with two new records but a second Page record-breaker is not named in the available results.

Official finish lists from the girls 5K varsity include the following top placings and splits: 1, Janessa Segay SR Chinle bib 3612 19:03.0 pace 6:08; 2, Damira Allen JR Ganado bib 3691 20:16.6 pace 6:32; 3, Kristin Harris SR Page bib 4390 21:10.1 pace 6:49; 4, Catherine Denetclaw SO Tohatchi bib 4556 21:30.2 pace 6:56; 5, Brook Huma SO Hopi bib 3741 21:46.8 pace 7:01; 6, Kaylee (surname truncated in results) bib 4558.

Result platforms for the event also include deeper fields and team roster blocks. One entry in the runner list shows Rhiannon Paul 19:21.7 and Aiyana Wellington 19:22.5 among mid-pack finishers, while an anomalous line lists Nikira Kinlichee with a clock time of 1:15:11.8 and average 37:36 as printed in the event feed. Those full results and bib-level details are available in the official result files for the Canyon de Chelly Invitational.

Segay’s course record and Martin’s sub-16 performance underscored a day of fast times on a demanding Chinle Market course and set momentum for both Wildcats and Sand Devils as the season moves on.