ATHLETE OF THE YEAR

Shane Gard, sr., Pocatello

Best time: 15:40.6

Shane Gard hoped to bounce back from a disappointing 2019 cross country season — he made first-team All-Area but finished 20th at the state meet as he battled an illness — during spring track.

As it turned out, that wasn’t to be. The coronavirus pandemic made Gard wait a whole year for a chance at redemption — but when that chance finally came, Gard made the most of it.

From the first race of the season, when he ran 16:35.0 and finished runner-up to eventual Wyoming state champ Peter Visser at the SHARC XC meet in Soda Springs, Gard established himself as the top runner in the area.

Indeed, in a season that saw him win five times in 10 races and only finish out of the top three once — a fourth-place finish at the early-season Cardinal Classic — Gard never finished behind another local runner.

His best stretch came at the end of the season, when he won four out of six races and put up a PR of 15:40.6 in one of the races he didn’t win.

And at the state championship meet, where everything had gone so wrong the year before, everything went just right for Gard.

On Gard’s home course at the Portneuf Wellness Complex, Preston’s Sam Jeppsen, his main rival who finished just four seconds behind Gard at the district meet the week before, had his own issues and faded back into the pack. Chased by the same District 5 competitors he’d battled — and beaten — all season, Gard broke the tape with a time of 15:42.3, nearly 10 seconds ahead of the runner-up.

“He committed to the sport and he committed to getting better, putting in the time that he needed to put in to race at the next level,” Pocatello coach Shannon Whitmer said. “In order to be a state champ, you have to have that commitment, and then that overflows to the rest of the team.”

Aside from being a state champion — already a pretty exclusive club — Gard’s times marked him as one of the true elite runners in Idaho in 2020. His PR made him the fastest runner in 4A across the whole season, and sixth in the state.

“It just kind of reminded me why I love running,” Gard said. “You put in this hard work and you can see results come out of it.”

FIRST TEAM

Xander Thompson, sr., Century

Best time: 15:51.3

The lowdown: Thompson saved the best for last with an exceptional 15:51.3 performance at the 4A state championships to finish second behind his city rival Shane Gard. It was the third-fastest time in 4A in the 2020 season, and the first time in Thompson’s career that he ran under 16 minutes. It was fitting that it happened at the state meet, where he also set personal records in his sophomore and junior years. In his final season, Thompson won the Grace Invitational and Blake Stephens Invitational, and finished in the top five of six out of the nine races he competed in.

Sam Jeppsen, sr., Preston

Best time: 15:56.3

The lowdown: Jeppsen gutted through an off day at the 4A state meet to be Preston’s top runner and finish fifth overall with a time of 16:06.9, leading the Indians to a team title.

That came after he broke 16 minutes in the previous two races, running 15:58.7 to win the Preston Invite and a season-best 15:56.3 to finish second at the 4A District 5 championship. The latter time was the sixth-fastest in 4A this season. Jeppsen also won the Terry Jones, Cache Box and Snake River Invites, and finished in the top 10 of every race he competed in.

Jared Harden, sr., Highland

Best time: 15:56.0

The lowdown: After finishing 12th at state in 2019, Harden was even better in 2020, running a PR of 15:56.0 to finish fifth. Only Borah star Nathan Green and the Idaho Falls trio of Mitchell and Luke Athay and Zac Bright finished ahead of the Highland star. Without much of a team around him (Jacob Van Orden was the only other Highland runner to qualify for state), Harden steadily improved as the season went on, running under 16:30 in each of his final five races. He won the Bronco Classic and Mile High Classic, and finished in the top six in every non-virtual race he competed in.

Brevin Vaughan, sr., Pocatello

Best time: 15:57.5

The lowdown: In his final season, Vaughan was the perfect complement to Gard, giving Poky a 1-2 punch that most teams could only dream of. He ran 15:57.5 — the eighth-fastest time in 4A this season — at the state meet to finish third and complete the Gate City sweep of the podium with Gard and Thompson. Extremely consistent, Vaughan didn’t win a race but finished in the top 10 in every one he entered, including podium finishes at the Pirate Challenge (second), and Bear Lake and Dani Bates Invites (both third).

Eli Gregory, jr., Blackfoot

Best time: 15:58.8

The lowdown: Gregory, the only non-senior on the All-Area first team, took a big step up after a sophomore season in which he only had four top-10 finishes. He more than doubled that in 2020 with nine, only failing to place in the top 10 once. That included a streak of seven races to end the season in which his only result worse than fourth was an eighth-place finish at the 4A state meet. During that stretch, he took wins at the Tour de Bonneville, Burley Invite and 4A District 6 championships, and ran 15:58.8, a PR and the ninth-fastest time in 4A this season, to finish second at the Firth Invite.

SECOND TEAM

Edison Leffler, jr., Preston

Best time: 16:05.0

The lowdown: Leffler crossed the line right behind his teammate Jeppsen at the 4A state meet to take sixth and help Preston win the state title. It was Leffler’s second straight top-10 finish at state. After breaking 16 minutes at 2019’s district championship meet, he didn’t hit that mark in 2020, but came pretty darn close, running under 16:10 in each of his last three races. That included a 16:05.0 in a runner-up effort at the Preston Invite, the 11th-fastest time in 4A all year.

Cole Wilkerson, so., Grace

Best time: 16:05.9

The lowdown: In his second year at Grace, Wilkerson’s linear improvement was staggering. His PR as a freshman was 17:30.3 at the state championships, but he beat that with a 17:12.4 at the Pirate Challenge in just his third race of 2020. Two weeks later, he broke 17 minutes for the first time. At the state meet, he finished in 16:05.9 — a new PR by nearly 25 seconds — to finish second, just behind Liberty Charter’s Connor Gardner. That time was the third-fastest all year in 1A, a classification in which only seven runners ran under 17 minutes all year.

Garrett Hale, jr., Preston

Best time: 16:10.1

The lowdown: Hale made it three Preston runners — and an astonishing seven local runners — in the top 10 at the 4A state meet, running 16:10.1 to finish ninth. That was the 13th-fastest time in 4A in 2020. Hale, who’ll team up with Edison Leffler to help Preston try to defend its team title next year, had a solid season with a second-place finish at the Terry Jones Invitational and third-place efforts at the Cache Box and Preston Invites. Incredibly, his times at the Preston Invite and the 4A District 5 championship the week after were identical down the tenth-of-a-second — 16:32.8. Even crazier, his time at the Bob Conley Invitational, the week before Preston (and at a different course), was 16:33.3, just a half-second off.

Justin Whitehead, jr., Blackfoot

Best time: 16:26.2

The lowdown: Whitehead closed strong with a 16:26.2 and 13th-place finish at the state meet, only the second time the junior broke 17 minutes all year. It was the second straight year he’d broken through at state, with his 16:24.8 in 2019 still standing as a PR. In 2020, the strong closing statement came at the end of a good stretch for Whitehead, who finished in the top 10 at each of the five previous races before state. That included a second-place finish at the 4A District 6 championship, and third-place finishes at the Mile High Classic and Tour de Bonneville.

Kelson Smith, sr., Soda Springs

Best time: 16:30.2

The lowdown: Smith posted the fastest time of any local 2A or 3A runner in 2020, crossing the line in 16:30.2 at the state meet to finish seventh. It was the ninth-fastest time by a 2A runner all year, and it meant that, after running behind teammate Carter McCullough for most of the year, Smith was the one leading Soda Springs to a runner-up finish at state. It was Smith’s sixth top 10 in 10 races in the fall and meant that he finished his career as a three-time state placer after finishing 20th as a sophomore and 12th as a junior.