Cherokee Trail won the Aurora and Centennial League championships and qualified for the Class 5A boys cross country state meet as a team, which makes it fitting that its members comprise the majority of the 2025 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Boys Cross Country Team.
The All-Aurora team — determined primarily by state meet results — includes seniors Dylan Smith, Josh Chadeayne and Carter Getty plus juniors Jaxon Weber and Kenneth English of the Cougars to go with Vista PEAK Prep junior Brandon Pearcy and Regis Jesuit senior Liam Martin.
Cherokee Trail went into the season under the new leadership of Jonathan Dalby, the architect of Mountain Vista’s powerhouse team in recent years. The Cougars adjusted to Dalby’s new style and experienced successes along the way, starting with a victory at the city meet.
That performance was led by Smith — a key member of Cherokee Trail’s third straight 5A boys track & field state championship in the spring — who became the fourth all-time Cherokee Trail boys to win the city championship. He would lead all Aurora area qualifiers at the 5A state meet with a 38th-place showing at the end of a season that included top-five finishes at the Centennial League Championships (2nd), Dave Sanders Invitational (4th in Division I), Liberty Bell Invitational (5th in a season-best time of 15:49.30) and Pat Amato Classic (5th).
Weber finished the season strong as he was fourth at the league championships, ninth in the Region 1 meet (despite losing a shoe) and 58th at the state meet. Chadeayne was the Aurora city runner-up, placed third at the Centennial League meet and grabbed 84th at state, while English came in 96th at state after he was top-10 finisher in the city race (fifth) and league championships (ninth) and Getty was 122nd at state with a similar resume after he took fourth at the city meet and sixth in league.
Pearcy became Vista PEAK Prep’s first-ever state qualifier on the boys side (Grace Dow made it for the girls in 2021) at the end of a breakout season. He had four top-five finishes, led by a second at the Dave Sanders Invitational and he was the first Aurora area runner across the finish line at the Region 1 meet in which he finished fifth, which he followed with a 63rd-place performance in his state meet debut.
Martin had a solid season for Regis Jesuit, as he and freshman Luis Duarte (who also qualified for state), took turns leading the way. Martin’s lone top-10 performance of the season was a seventh at the Northfield Nighthawks Invitational and he rebounded from a 62nd-place finish at the Continental League Championships to take 90th at the state meet.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports