What: Region 1 Cross Country Championship.
When: Monday, Oct. 23 – (All times MST) 5A Girls, 8 a.m.; 5A Boys, 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25 – 6A Girls, 8 a.m.; 6A Boys, 8:30 a.m.; 4A Girls, 11 a.m.; 4A Boys, 11:30 a.m.
Where: Mae Simmons Park, MLK Blvd. and 24th Street in Lubbock.
At Stake: Top four teams and top 10 individuals not on a qualifying team advance to the UIL Cross Country State Championship, Saturday Nov. 3 and 4 at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock.
Who advanced?
The following girl’s teams and runners have advanced:
Class 6A: Franklin, Eastwood and Pebble Hills. Also, Mia Hairston, Montwood.
Class 5A: Chapin, El Paso, Burges, Hanks, Bel Air and Del Valle. Also, Nevaeh Escobedo, Canutillo and Jacqueline Gonzalez, Horizon.
Class 4A: Harmony, Riverside, Irvin, San Elizario, Fabens and Young Women’s Academy. Also, Lileni Ayala, Mt. View and Dayanara Gonzalez, Mt. View.
The following boy’s teams and runners have advanced:
Class 6A: Eastwood, Franklin and Coronado. Also, Diego Romeo, Americas and Mark Barajas, Pebble Hills.
Class 5A: El Paso, Chapin, Burges, Del Valle, Hanks and Bel Air. Also, Abraham Martinez, Horizon.
Class 4A: Austin, Riverside, Harmony, San Elizario, Fabens and Valle Verde.
Horizon Golf Course was transformed into a cross country district championship course for a few hours Thursday morning as five boys and girls district titles were won.
The district cross country meets for Class 4A, 5A and District 1-6A produced twist and turns and plenty of surprise district champions.
The San Elizario boys won its eleventh District 2-4A championship, the Franklin girls won its sixth 1-6A title, Eastwood’s boys regained the District 1-6A crown and the Harmony Science Academy girls won its first District 1-4A championship.
Other first-time winners include Franklin senior Matthew Engle won the individual title in 1-6A, Chapin junior Rebecca Duran in 1-5A, Hanks sophomore Lily Arias and Bel Air senior Leonardo Resendez in 2-5A, Austin junior Pedro Jimenez and Riverside junior Kim Castro in 1-4A and San Elizario senior Julian Guerra and Fabens freshman Alexia Martinez in 2-4A.
The top three teams and runners from each district who finished in the top 10 and not on a qualifying team will advance to the Region 1 Championship Oct. 23-24 in Lubbock.
District 1-6A
The Franklin girls won its sixth straight championship in dominating fashion, placing all seven of its runners in the top 10, scoring 20 points.
Emily Orr led the way finishing second in 20:05.43, followed by Brooke McCune (third, 20:16.11), Abigail Pinon (fourth, 20:48.26), Sophia Keiser (fifth, 20:58.50), Victoria Hoyt (sixth, 21:07.77), Olivia Elder (seventh, 21:15.13) and Sienna Zarate (tenth, 21:35.76).
Eastwood junior Adelynn Rodriguez defended her individual title, winning in 19:42.69. Eastwood finished second with 81 points, five points ahead of Pebble Hills.
All three teams will advance to regionals as well as Montwood’s Mia Hairston who finished ninth in 21:29.70. Carolina Zarrabal from Pebble Hills finished eighth in 21:23.59.
“I really enjoyed the course, it was different than last year,” Rodriguez said. “My strategy was to stay with the pack and when it was time to go, just go. There was lot of wind, too so I had really watch it because I didn’t want to push too much, especially with the wind force hitting me. All that matters now is qualifying on moving on to the next race.”
The boys District 1-6A championship is back at Eastwood as the Troopers placed four runners in the top 10 to score 36 points.
Prior to last year, Eastwood had won 11 district championship in a row.
Defending champion Franklin was second with 74 points and Coronado was third with 76 points. The T-Birds top runner was Edgar Valles who was fifth in 16:54.69.
“This feels really good, we’re really proud of ourselves, we’ll see what happens the rest of the way,” said Aidan Torres, Eastwood’s top runner. “I had a good race, I got out kicked, there’s always going to be somebody faster, but that’ll motivate me to work harder.”
Torres finished second in 16:17.32 followed by teammates Sulliman Rodriguez (sixth, 17:02.99), Leo Espino (seventh, 17:11.54) and Luke Cruz (ninth, 17:13.62).
Franklin senior Matthew Engle won the individual title in 16:09.60.
For him, it was a bittersweet moment.
“It’s tough, especially because the majority of the team are seniors, we wanted to defend it,” Engle said of the team finishing second. “But it was nice to win my first (individual district). I’ve been working really hard the past three years. It doesn’t feel like it’s real right now.”
Engle said his quest for a district title began in earnest last year.
“It really all clicked last year when I injured myself,” he said. “I felt on top of the world my junior year, I felt I was doing really good, and I injured myself. I knew that I had to be all in, no more half in, half out. This season has been nice, I’ve had team to back me up every step of the way. We are all seniors. We all grew up together, we work together, we do everything together. That has been the key to our success.”
Franklin had two other runners in the top 10 – Juan Leal (fourth, 16:51.75) and Gabriel Uranga (tenth, 17:16.90).
In addition to Eastwood, Franklin and Coronado, Americas’ Diego Romero (third, 16:44.36) and Pebble Hills’ Mark Barajas (eighth, 17:12.93) will advance to regionals.
District 1-5A
The El Paso High boys defended their title, easily winning with 21 points. Chapin was second with 49 points and Burges was third with 58 points.
Tiger runners took the top four spots – junior Miles Westbrook won his second district individual title in 16:46.48 followed by Ulysses O’Rourke (second, 17:31.37), senior Aydan Lugo (third, 17:39.87) and senior
Leo Valenzuela (fourth, 17:44.76).
“We came into it knowing that we would have a really good chance,” Westbrook said. “We knew we were all going to be up there so we had to make sure that we continued to push out hard so we know what it will feel like when we get to regionals.”
Chapin placed three runners in the top 10 including Sean Sanchez (fifth, 17:52.22), Jose Rosa Garcia (sixth, 18:00.96) and Braulio Torres (eighth, 18:06.75).
Burges also had a strong showing with Jesus Gastelum-Bustamante (seventh, 18:01.20), Christian Baca (ninth, 18:11.77) and Malin Arnoldussen (tenth, 18:16.75).
The Chapin girls easily won the district title with 20 points followed by El Paso with 44 and Burges with 84.
Husky runners took five of the top 10 spots, including the first four.
Junior Rebecca Duran won the individual title in 20:58.51 followed by Ava Dennis (second, 21:07.64), Biviana Garcia (third, 21:40.69), Jocelyn Diaz Torres (fourth, 21:58.03) and Abigail Sanchez (tenth, 23:07.85).
“Every single girl on this team is new, expect for me, I ran last year,” Duran said. “In the beginning, we were little iffy about the team but we knew if we worked throughout the summer and we trained hard and trained together, we knew it would work out. This team is really close, we are like sisters, we hang out after school, at school, at practice, basically the whole day together so we’ve built a strong chemistry together.”
Canutillo’s Nevaeh Escobedo qualified for regionals, finishing fifth in 22:23.83.
El Paso runners in the top 10 were Andrea Castillo (sixth, 22:35.48), Sofia Speer (seventh, 22:52.05) and Calista Sakellakos (eighth, 22:52.38).
Burges’ Keilah Garcia Valenzuela was ninth in 23:03.94.
District 2-5A
The Knights girls defended its district crown, finishing one spot short of a perfect score. Bel Air was second with 59 points and Del Valle third with 82.
Hanks has six runners in the top 10 including district champ sophomore Lily Arias who completed the course in 21:37.29.
“I felt good,” Arias said after winning her first race in her young career. “The entire team was motivated, and I tried my best to stay up there. I really surprised myself with that race. I was really shocked; I couldn’t believe I was up there.”
Ashlyn McMillan was second in 21:48.56 followed by Elizabeth Aguirre (third, 21:58.83), Destinee Loeza (fifth, 23:07.57), Alyssa Fino (sixth, 23:26.44) and Madison Leedom (tenth, 24:12.16).
Horizon’s Jacqueline Gonzalez was fourth in 22:08.54 and punched her ticket to regionals.
Bel Air had two runners in the top 10 – Kailee Fierro (seventh, 23:39.84) and Carolyna Noriega (eighth, 23:51.60) – and Del Valle’s Bobbi Guillen was ninth in 23:56.82.
The Del Valle boys won the district team championship while Bel Air senior Leonardo Resendez won the individual title in 17:49.05.
“It was something that I’ve been thinking about all week,” Resendez said. “Inside (myself) I wasn’t really confident coming in, but outside, I had to show my team that I could.”
Hanks was second with 46 points and Bel Air was third with 50.
Top runners for the district champion Conquistadors were Damian Espinosa (second, 18:02.69), Jordan Diaz (fifth, 18:42.94), Jorge Ceniceros (seventh, 19:20.49) and Cesar Ruiz (tenth, 19:33.28).
Second place Hanks had three in the top 10 – Zerach Hernandez (fourth, 18:27.58), Abel Navejas (eighth, 19:29.63) and Ruben Ortega (ninth, 19:30.59).
Bel Air’s Hernnan Duarte was third in 18:03.42 and Horizon’s Abraham Martinez was sixth in 19:17.81.
District 1-4A
The Austin boys return to the top spot in district with a convincing 19-point performance to easily win the 1-4A title.
Riverside was second with 52 points and Harmony was third with 56.
Austin junior Pedro Jimenez won the individual title in 18:44.90.
“I’m very happy that we won, we worked very hard every day in the summer,” he said. “I started running my freshman year, but I only ran two meets. My sophomore year I ran a lot more. This year I’ve been working every day, no brakes. I never in my life had run before, I just played soccer, but coach (Manny) Rodriguez saw me running and get me into cross country.”
Four of his teammates were in the top 10 including Eirik Arredondo (second, 19:08.80), Jeremiah Loustaunau (third, 19:19.76), Luis Pereda (fourth, 20:00.34) and Edgar Rodriguez (ninth, 21:24.57).
Riverside had three in the top 10 – Aidan Valladolid (fifth, 20:07.91), David Osoria (seventh, 20:42.10) and
Jimmy Salinas (eighth, 20:52.80).
Harmony’s Aiden Ochoa was sixth in 20:16.29 and Diego Martinez was tenth in 21:46.51.
On the girl’s side Harmony Science Academy won its first district championship in school history, narrowly winning over Riverside by four points.
All five of Harmony’s runners placed in the top 10 on the 2-mile course.
Yatznelly Galindo was third in 15:53.58, Regina Perez was fifth in 16:36.59, Ari Beltran Del Rio was sixth in, 16:43.55, Mireya Galindo was eighth in 16:55.95 and Anel Gaytan was tenth in 16:59.54.
Riverside junior Kim Castro won the individual tile in 15:30.25.
“We worked hard during the summer, so this is exciting for me to be able to win it this year,” said Castro, who finished fourth last year. “I started running long distance in track my freshman year and didn’t start running cross country until last year. I wasn’t a good runner at first, I was really behind but that’s what pushed me to train harder. I really love running and cross country.”
Teammate Dana Gonzalez was second in 15:48.07 and Daniela Almanza was fourth in 16:07.16.
Irvin, which finished third, had two in the top 9 – Hilda Urena (seventh, 16:55.36) and Zoe Estrada (ninth, 16:59.21).
District 2-4A
San Elizario earned a perfect score of 15 with seven runners placing in the top 9 to earn its eleventh district championship.
Senior Julian Guerra raced to his first district individual title, winning in 17:08.14.
“The course changed little bit from last year and the race was a little later than we usually run, plus there was a lot of wind but we stuck through it and made the best of it,” Guerra said. “We really used this race as a quick tempo (workout) since it was kind of just us. Regionals is a lot more competitive, so we needed a lot more practice because we’re adding speed now.”
Angel Maese was second in 17:32.23 followed by Antonio Arreola (third, 18:16.25), Bryan Hernandez (fourth, 18:28.49), Gustavo Salazar (fifth, 18:48.39), Alexander Cano (seventh, 19:26.95) and Jorel Miramontes (ninth, 19:35.72).
Fabens was second with 61 points and Valle Verde Early College was third.
Fabens had two runners in the top 8 – Teo Quinonez (sixth, 19:12.38) and Jesse Ortiz (eighth, 19:33.61 – and Valle Verde’s Marin Maldanado was tenth in 19:54.88.
The San Elizario girls won back-to-back titles, placing five runners in the top 9 for 33 points. Fabens was second with 41 points and Young Women’s Leadership Academy was third with 95 points.
Kylee Pardo was the low-stick runner, finishing third in 14:09.83 followed by Alexandra Ordaz (sixth, 14:54.16), Lyanna Morales (seventh, 15:10.00), Osmary Vazquez (eighth, 15:23.76) and Briana Mancillas (ninth, 15:32.75).
Fabens freshman Alexia Martinez won the individual title, running the 2-mile course in 13:35.10.
“I’m really proud of myself coming out here and running varsity my freshman year,” she said. “I had high expectations for myself. In middle school I was doing really good and winning a lot of races. Coming into high school I wanted to challenge myself, I thought I could do better good. I was expecting to finish top five but I ended up winning it.”
Two Mt. View runners paced in the top five – Lileni Ayala (second, 13:51.74) and Dayanara Gonzalez (fifth, 14:29.30) – and advanced to regionals.
Fabens had two runners in the top 10 – Angel Quinonez (fourth, 14:21.25) and Evelyn Hernandez (tenth, 16:00.25).
El Paso Running 