By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
The Hanna boys and Weslaco High girls came away with team championships at Saturday’s Brownsville ISD cross country meet at the BISD Encampment.
Each team won by a decisive margin.
The Hanna boys totaled 28 points in winning their title compared to 74 points for second-place Edinburg Economedes, 84 for third-place San Benito, 126 for fourth-place Brownsville Veterans Memorial and 134 for fifth-place Sharyland Pioneer.
The Weslaco High girls finished with 38 points to surpass second-place Brownsville Veterans with 55 points, third-place Economedes with 71, fourth-place Hanna with 73 and fifth-place Los Fresnos with 126.
“This was the first time we’ve won a meet this season,” Hanna coach Olaya Teran said of her boys squad. “We’ve had some finishes close to the top of the standings, but this was the first one we’ve won, so it was good.
“We ran really well today,” Teran added. “Obviously, we still have things to improve upon. We’re competing with San Benito (from our District 32-6A), and we haven’t seen Harlingen (High) yet, but we’ll see them next week at their meet. We still need a lot of work.”
The Hanna boys and girls are defending champions in 32-6A. The district meet is coming up Oct. 11 in Harlingen.
“We’ll be running the district course next week,” Teran said. “It’s a good, positive thing for our team (to win today) because that’s something our runners wanted to do. They wanted to win the BISD meet, because last year it was cancelled (due to bad weather). The year before (in 2017) we had won it, so we were really looking forward to running it this year (after the cancellation of 2018). Our runners are happy to win it today.”
Weslaco High coach Pablo Almaguer said his team was coming off an open date on its schedule, so Saturday’s team title for his girls was something quite satisfying.
“I was happy with our performance,” Almaguer said. “Coming off an off week, you wonder what kind of performance you’re going to have, so I was pretty happy with what we did today. We had a good week of practice.
“We’re trying to get ready for the bigger meets that are coming up,” Almaguer added. “Next week we’ll be in Corpus Christi (on the course where the regional meet will be staged) and then we’ll be in Round Rock (where the state meet takes place). We’re trying to get ready for those meets. Today we finished well, which should help us. We had been finishing second (at past meets) to a really good Sharyland (High) team.
“I was real proud of our performance and how our girls came through at this meet.”
One of the top performances Saturday by the Weslaco High girls was turned in by junior Amity Ebarb, who remained unbeaten this season by winning her fourth straight meet.
She took an early lead and won in 19 minutes, 29.2 seconds, which was five seconds better than runner-up Valeria Gamez of Brownsville Veterans (19:34.2).
“I feel great about the season, and I feel motivated for the future meets,” Ebarb said. “It’s great to have the team I have to push me along the way. It’s just amazing to be on this team.
“The race today was very good,” Ebarb added. “We had a lot of competition, and many of the runners were from our district (31-6A). It felt good to have those girls (from my district) there. I felt good about my race today.
“I just feel that I need to be focused (as the season enters the most important phase), and I want to be together with my team, so I can motivate my team and we can all push each other to do our best.”
Destinee Longoria, Ebarb’s teammate, finished third in 19:52.8. Porter’s Estrella Medellin was fourth in 20:13.2 and Hanna’s Brissa Stinson was fifth in 20:18.1.
The boys race was won by Mission High’s Felix Perez-Castillo in 16:00.2. His teammate, Rogelio Aguirre, took second in 16:11.8.
The next three finishers were all from Hanna. They were third-place John Abrego in 16:18.9, fourth-place Felipe Parra in 16:34.3 and fifth-place Marcos Tellez in 16:48.1.
The girls junior varsity team title was won by St. Joseph Academy with 48 points. Mission High captured the boys JV team title with 44 points.