By ROY HESS | Staff Writer
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Running on the beach at the 4th annual Sylvia H. Torres Memorial Cross Country Meet was a fun experience for the Edinburg High Lady Bobcats.
Winning the meet a second straight year made it even more enjoyable.
The Lady Bobcats edged Mission High, 44-46, for the varsity girls team championship during the annual cross country event staged by Port Isabel. The meet has been held previously at the high school, but this time the meet’s starting and finishing point was Clayton’s on South Padre Island with a varsity boys and girls course of 3 miles — 1 1/2 miles up the beach and the same distance back to the finish line.
If running on the beach wasn’t enough to make things unique and interesting, sporadic rain showers Saturday morning added to the overall experience for the participants.
“ I felt we did pretty good considering two of our top runners didn’t run today,” Lady Bobcats coach Erin Sutton said. “We kind of had a last-minute schedule change. Originally, we were scheduled to run at the Round Rock McNeil meet today, but it didn’t work out. This was a better opportunity for our girls to do well, even though we were missing some of them.
“ They really showed up,” Sutton added. “They were excited because it’s a different atmosphere than a lot of other races. They had a lot of fun. There was music playing and a nice breeze (off the ocean). On the first half of the race they were thinking, ‘Oh, this is nice,’ but then they had to go against the wind coming back, and they said the rain felt like bullets against their skin. They said they felt like they were running in a hurricane.”
Missing for the Lady Bobcats were No. 1 runner Melanie Marroquin and No. 3 runner Lizbeth Raya.
“ This is our first meet victory of the season, but we actually won this meet last year,” Sutton said. “We’re excited about winning this meet for the second straight time. I’m hoping it gives us a positive mentality going into next weekend’s Meet of Champions in Donna, because the Meet of Champions is extremely competitive.
“ We’re excited about having our whole team together next week and seeing what it will do at the Meet of Champions,” Sutton added. “They’ve been working really hard, so we’re excited to see what they can do. Hopefully this (win) will be positive momentum for us.
“ I’m just really proud of our runners. They came in with a good attitude. There was a little bit of a shuffle because we didn’t know the girls were going to run so soon after the boys. But they showed up, and they competed well, so I’m really proud of them.”
Finishing behind Edinburg High with 44 points and Mission High with 46 were third-place Donna High with 63 points and fourth-place San Benito with 109 points.
Individually for the varsity girls, Brownsville Rivera’s Bethany Guzman won in 20 minutes, 29 seconds. Finishing in the top five behind Guzman were Edinburg High’s Ava Noyola (20:38), Mission High’s Ceilia Arrolas (20:50), Donna High’s Ivelle Valladarez (21:00) and Mission High’s Michelle Flores (21:18).
San Benito won the varsity boys team title with an impressive 28 points. The runner-up boys team was Brownsville Pace with 52 points.
Individually for the varsity boys, San Benito’s Joaquin Medina won in 17:32. Teammate Marco Salinas was second in 17:36. Rounding out the top five finishers were Brownsville Lopez’s Julian Juarez (17:42), Rivera’s Julian Tavares (17:42) and Rivera’s Juan Gavina (17:55).