PSJA High’s Faith Cruz and PSJA Memorial’s Williams Macias showed that the COVID-19 pandemic didn’t slow them as they captured the individual girls and boys titles at the Edcouch-Elsa Yellow Jacket Cross-Country Invitational on Saturday, the first cross-country meet in the Valley this season.
Neither runner is a stranger to breaking the tape at the finish line. Cruz, a junior, won the 5k girls event in 20 minutes, 6.01 seconds. She finished 39.24 seconds ahead of second-place Vanessa Cerda of Edcouch-Elsa. The Yellow Jackets’ girls won the team portion of the event with three top-five finishers including Cerda, Terresa Gallegos (third) and Rebecca Davila (fifth).
“I’m just glad we had the opportunity to compete and we are going to make the best of the opportunities we have,” Edcouch-Elsa girls head coach Juan Perez said. “First and foremost is the safety of our athletes and our coaches and staff and we did everything we could think of to keep everyone safe.
Edcouch-Elsa finished with 71 points to beat Weslaco East by one. The Wildcats placed five runners in the top 20, led by Jennica Paz in ninth place. Mission High finished in third with 74 points, two behind Weslaco East and three in back of E-E. Jordan Hernandez led Mission High in fourth place.
Perez said there are only three meets remaining before the district meet, then regionals and state.
“I tell the girls we will do the best we can do and there will be no excuse. I’m glad we did well,” said Perez, in his 10th year at the E-E helm. “Sure, it’s tough for all the teams across the Valley due to COVID, but we’re all working and hoping we can have some runners advance this year. There are a lot of great teams in the Valley and we cheer for them all.”
Macias, a senior and The Monitor’s All-Valley Male Cross-Country Athlete of the Year last season as a junior, outpaced Solis by about 10 seconds to win the boys title in 15:51.48. Solis was second in 16:01.08.
McHi finished with five runners in the top 10 for a dominant start to the season. Ismael Hernandez and Hunter Herrera completed the course in 16:12.84 and 16:12.89 to capture third and fourth, respectively. Rene Tamez, Julio Alanis and Matt Gonzalez captured eighth, ninth and 10th, respectively, for the Bulldogs. Gonzalez is a junior, while the other top McHi finishers are seniors.
McHi scored a field-best 29 points to outdistance the opposition. McAllen Memorial was second with 80 and Mission High was third with 83 points.