The teams sometimes travel together, but they have different coaches and do not practice together. At the Casa Grande meet, they got off the bus and headed different directions into the cool night.

They were quickly absorbed into an athletic carnival, acres of uniformed teams wandering to and from the course and huddled around team tents. The course crossed soccer fields, a stretch of dirt and a golf course and then snaked back along several fairways to the finish. The air was filled with dust and the sound of generators powering temporary lights.

Baker was nervous. A quiet and poised man, with glasses and spiky black hair lightly freckled with gray, he felt that this year’s team was vulnerable. The team was young. It had melted in the heat of a meet in Phoenix the week before.

More broadly, Baker had found it increasingly difficult to find Hopi boys dedicated to running. Fewer committed to the summer running program. There were too many distractions these days. This could be the year that the streak ended.

“People stop me and say, ‘How’s the team doing?’” Baker said. “They know we didn’t start too well. But they say, ‘You’ll be ready at state.’”

Hopi High ran in the meet’s final race, with many of the state’s biggest schools. At the start, Baker crowded in with his seven boys, including his son Steven, a sophomore.