By ROY HESS/Staff Writer
District 32-5A cross country teams, including those from Brownsville, are expected to compete at Saturday’s Donna ISD Invitational at the Donna High School campus.
The meet’s 5,000-meter course for varsity races will be the same one used for the 32-5A meet on Oct. 21.
“”Our main purpose (of running at Donna on Saturday) is to recognize the field where the kids will run in district,” Pace coach Mario Cisneros said. “It’s not going to be easy due to (our) injuries.
“”We have lost some key runners on both the boys and girls teams due to injuries,” Cisneros added. ” Hopefully they’ll be back and ready for the district meet.”
Getting used to the course for the 32-5A meet is also the primary reason Brownsville Veterans Memorial coach Jorge Medina is taking his squad to Donna.
“”It’s so our runners can see the course and become familiar with it,” Medina said. “We’ll look and see what they need to fine-tune before district. All the 32-5A teams should be there to see what the course is like.”
Saturday’s meet will start with the girls varsity race at 8:30 a.m. The girls race will be followed by the boys varsity competition.
UPCOMING
One of the first conference meets this month will be the District 32-6A meet on Oct. 14 at the Harlingen Sports Complex. The majority of 32-6A teams had the opportunity to check out the course to be used for district last weekend at the Harlingen Invitational.
With another week to go before 32-6A competition, some teams will be running at Donna on Saturday and others might opt to rest their runners to get ready for next week’s 32-6A action in Harlingen.
“”Yes, we’re running at Donna,” Los Fresnos coach Frank Falcon said. “However, I’m not going to run some of our athletes as the district meet is next week on Friday and they would benefit more by me resting them (this Saturday).”
The only other Valley meet on the schedule for Saturday is the Patriot Invitational in Mission. Mission Veterans is the host school.
STRONG SHOWING
Port Isabel’s girls made quite a strong showing in the 3.2-mile junior varsity race at the Harlingen Invitational last Saturday.
They won the JV girls team title with 23 points compared to 131 for second-place Weslaco High. The top five finishers for the Lady Tarpons were Susana Torres, first place in 22 minutes, 14.41 seconds; Gabby Torres, second place in 22:14.97; Ava Gomez, third place in 22:23.03; Keila Guerrero, seventh place in 23:45.69; and Melissa Lopez, 10th place in 24:05.46.
Because it is a smaller school, Port Isabel’s varsity runners were competing in the JV division against JV runners from the bigger Class 6A and 5A schools.
VALLEY RANKINGS
Here are the latest rankings by the Rio Grande Valley Cross Country Coaches Association:
Girls — 1. La Joya Palmview, 2. Sharyland Pioneer, 3. Edinburg High, 4. PSJA Memorial, 5. PSJA North, 6. San Benito, 7. Mission High, 8. Hanna, 9. Mission Veterans, 10. Sharyland High
Boys — 1. Edinburg North, 2. Donna North, 3. La Joya Juarez-Lincoln, 4. La Joya Palmview, 5. Rio Grande City, 6. Donna High, 7. McAllen Memorial, 8. La Joya High, 9. Mission High, 10. Mission Veterans
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess