He wore different colors last year. But was the same -- actuallly a better runner -- this year.

Nate Rodriguez, sporting Corona del Sol orange rather than Williams Field red, turned in a second straight individual championship performance Saturday morning to highlight action at the 17th annual Chandler  Cross Country Invitational at Tumbleweed Recreation Park.

Rodriguez, a sophomore, won the freshman race last year. With the unique format of the Chandler Invitational being four races all by by class (freshman, sophomore, junior and senior), this was a chance for Rodriguez to repeat against his own peer group.

"That was my motivation," Rodriguez said. "I wanted to defend my title. My plan was to stay back a bit, but I had to change that early. I went out to the lead at 300 yards to a quarter-mile. I usually feel more comfortable if I have to come up and challenge. I didn't feel that was the way to go after the race started."

Rodriguez shaved 80 seconds off his time of a year ago as a freshman. He covered the 5K layout in 16 minutes, 29 seconds. That was 44 seconds better than runner-up Brennen Barfuss of Higley. Rodriguez was the lone repeat individual champ from 2010. The team champs, however, stayed the same with Desert Vista's girls and Highland's boys winning comfortably over Ironwood Ridge and Canyon del Oro, respectively. Team scoring was the total of each school's highest finishing runner in each race so four was a perfect score. Desert Vista's girls finished with 10 and Highland's boys with 20.

Top boys time of the day went to McClintock senior Eduardo Roa. Roa, who finished second last year in the junior race, turned in a time of 16:12. That bested Marcopa senior Chris Lessard (16:22). Lessard edged Roa last year for the junior title by one-half second. The other boys race winners were Hamilton's Marcus Wheeler (17:03) and Cactus Shadows junior Ethan Homan (16:48). Homan was eight last year in the sophomore race. He won this year by one second over Highland's Logan Woolf, who was second for the second year in a row.

An entire new set of girls champs were crowned. Top clocking of the day went to Basha sophomore Courtney Goodrich (19:09). Goodrich was third in the freshman race last year. This year's senior champ was Highland's Tory Haberman (19:10). Haberman was also third in the junior race last year.

The junior champ was Desert Vista's Brittany Tretbar (19:47), who improved from last year's runner-up sophomore finish. The freshman champ was Tretbar's teammate, Dani Jones. Jones time was 19:44, 55 secondss faster than the runner-up time.