By ROY HESS, Staff Writer
Runners from four Brownsville schools will compete in Friday’s District 32-5A cross country meet in Donna.
Brownsville Veterans Memorial, Lopez, Pace and Porter will be running over a 5,000-meter course in the varsity divisions on the Donna High School campus. Also competing in the 32-5A meet will be Donna High, Donna North, Mercedes and Edcouch-Elsa.
Teams from 32-5A had an opportunity to run on the same course to be used for Friday’s district meet at the Donna Invitational on Oct. 8.
“It’s a good, wide-open course,” said Brownsville Veterans coach Jorge Medina, whose boys and girls were among those competing at the Donna Invitational. “The runners can see where they’re going. I don’t think the course is going to have anything to do with it (as far as which runners do well). It’s going to be up to the runners and how well they run and how well they place themselves (in contention) in the race. Hopefully we can come through.”
Medina especially likes the chances of his boys at district. They finished fourth as a team at the Donna Invitational with 140 points. Donna North, pretty much considered the top boys team in the Valley this season, won the Donna Invitational with 80 points. Class 6A schools Harlingen High and La Joya Juarez-Lincoln were second and third with 118 and 137 points, respectively.
Top finishers for the Chargers at the Oct. 8 meet were Carlos Rodriguez (22nd), Joe Michael Lopez (28th) and Camilo Callejas (29th). The field included 6A runners and runners from other 5A districts.
“Our boys ran well and I was real proud of them,” Medina said. “We’re hoping to repeat what we did that day (or do better) at district. We think they have a chance at regionals. The boys are confident, they’re running well in practice and they’ve had a great attitude all season. They’re fired up and they want a trip to the regional meet really bad.”
The top 10 individuals and top three teams at district qualify for the Region IV meet on Oct. 29 in Corpus Christi.
Team favorites in the 32-5A meet look to be Donna North for the boys and Edcouch-Elsa for the girls.
Individual favorites figure to be Mercedes teammates Jonathan Reyes and Dominic Cavazos for the boys and E-E teammates Haley Villalpando and Kelly Aguinaga for the girls.
32-3A UPDATE
The District 32-3A meet was held Wednesday at Delta Lake near Edcouch.
Brownsville IDEA Frontier’s boys and girls each captured second-place team finishes to qualify for the regional meet. Also, Frontier’s Sabrina Garcia won the girls varsity race. She was a state qualifier individually last year along with the Frontier boys team.
“Congratulations to all our runners,” Frontier coach Albert Alanis said. “They’ve worked extremely hard all season, but we still have one more goal, and that’s qualifying for state once again. Short and sweet (that’s our goal).”
Team winners at Wednesday’s 32-3A meet were Falfurrias for the boys and Santa Rosa for the girls.
32-4A UPDATE
Ava Gomez was the only runner from Port Isabel to qualify for regional competition at last Saturday’s District 32-4A meet in Raymondville. The Lady Tarpons junior finished 10th in the girls varsity race.
The 32-4A team titles went to Progreso for the boys and La Feria for the girls. Hidalgo’s Jesus Guerrero won the boys race while La Feria’s Tina Sierra was first in the girls race.
Roy Hess covers sports for The Brownsville Herald. You can reach him via email at [email protected]. On Twitter he’s @HessRgehess