By ANDREW CRUM, Staff Writer
The track & field season has wound down into one of the more important moments of the season, the district meet.
Track & field athletes from District 32-6A will converge today and Thursday to decide who will take top honors during this year’s district competition at Brownsville Veterans Memorial.
The field events will begin at 9 a.m. and the finals will take place later today. The running preliminaries will start at 5 p.m. and the finals are slated for 5 p.m. Thursday.
The district meet was slated to be held at Sams Memorial Stadium, but had to be moved to the Brownsville Veterans campus. Brownsville ISD athletic director Mark Guess said via text message that Sams is unavailable because it “needed maintenance and repairs.”
But the move didn’t matter much to the coaches.
“I think we all have the ability to run our best any place we go,” Rivera girls coach Jenny Schuster said. “It’s just the mentality going there, I don’t think anyone has an advantage over anyone else.”
If the recent Meet of Champions track & field meet was any indication, several athletes and teams have a shot to advance to the regional meet from 32-6A.
The Harlingen South boys team finished second, Harlingen High was third, Los Fresnos and Rivera were tied for seventh. On the girls side, Los Fresnos was fourth, Harlingen South was seventh and Harlingen High was ninth.
In individual events, Christian Perales of Los Fresnos won the 100-meter dash, just tens of a second faster than Sammy Orive of Rivera and Jediah Guzman of San Benito. Manny Guerrero (Rivera) was fourth in the 800 run, and teammate Anthony Garza won the 1,600 run. Garza was also third in the 3,200 run and teammate Jonathan Herrera was fifth.
Harlingen South had the top 400 relay team, and Harlingen High had the top finish in the 1,600 relay. Andres Bodden (Brownsville Veterans) was sixth in the discus and Orive and Pete Perez (Los Fresnos) were in contention in the triple jump.
For the girls, Nicole Gonzalez (Harlingen South) was on top in the 100 and 200 dash and second in the 400. She’ll be chased by Luisa Cruz (Los Fresnos) in the 100 and Alondra Escobar (Los Fresnos) and Alondra Toleda (Brownsville Veterans) in the 200.
Gonzalez finished second in the 400 dash, Julianna Guerrero (Harlingen High) was fourth and Reyna Medrano (Lopez) was sixth.
Valeria Granados (Los Fresnos) had the top throw in the shot put and will be challenged by Samantha Alvarez (Harlingen High) and Soledad Villarreal (San Benito).
And the 400 relay team of Los Fresnos was fourth and the 800 relay team of Brownsville Veterans was fifth.
If there are several races and events that resemble those at the Meet of Champions, it should be just as intense.
Especially for a young team like the Lady Raiders. Several athletes are competing in their first district meet.
“This is a very young team for me,” Schuster said. “We’re going to try to shine in a few areas, our long distance, and I’d like to see what we can do in the relays, we’re going to try to make some noise.
“We’ll see how we do, there’s a lot of good competition here.”
Andrew Crum covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him at (956) 982-6629 or via email at [email protected]. On Twitter, he’s @andrewmcrum.