The weather heading into the weekend at one point threatened to cancel the Port Isabel Cross Country Invitational, but instead forced the course to be changed to a pavement-heavy run.
None of that deterred Rivera’s Andrea de la Rosa from staying perfect, as she finished the course in 18 minutes, 26 seconds to pick up her sixth straight meet win of the season.
“It was a really nice race and I actually loved how it was mostly concrete and just a little bit of grass,” de la Rosa said. “It was just like practice. I felt great today, it was a great race and it was good weather — that’s why I had a good time. So, yeah, I’m confident.”
De la Rosa’s time was a new personal record and 1:23 seconds faster than Los Fresnos’ Clarissa Tellez, who finished second with a time of 19:49.
Rivera track coach Arturo Hurtado likes what he sees as far as progress goes for de la Rosa, but has the big picture in mind for his star runner.
“So far everything has been so good (with de la Rosa) and we’re hoping that maybe she can pick it up heading towards the regional and state meets,” Hurtado said. “There are some good girls at those meets that are going to be real competitive. Hopefully she’ll perform there at the big race.”
Rounding out the top five were Edinburg High’s Angelica Noyola (19:52) and Porter’s Estrella Medellin (20:06).
The Edinburg High girls won the team title with 56 points and had all six of their runners finish in the top 25, with five finishing in the top 20.
Edinburg High coach Erin Sutton said that adjusting to the course being mostly pavement was an issue at first, but her team took it in stride and gained confidence in the end.
“It took a little bit of adjusting, but the girls were excited for it,” she said. “They were like, ‘It’s going to be fast,’ and I said, ‘All right, that’s the mindset to have.’ We’ve been working on their confidence since they’ve been kind of lacking that this year. To have a race like this where they all finish in the top 25 is really impressive for them, and it will give us confidence for our district meet in two weeks.”
While the girls race was dominated by both a team and an individual, the boys race featured light rain and late duel between Harlingen South’s Eric Lopez and San Benito’s Marco Salinas.
Salinas took an early lead and held steady throughout the race until Lopez made his move to take the lead with 300 meters to go on the track portion of the course and never looked back, winning the race with a time of 15:35.
“The race started off pretty fast, and it was the fastest I’ve gone all season during the first mile,” Lopez said. “I saw people trying to come up behind me, but I held them off until (the 2.5 mile mark), that’s when it was just me and Marcos (Salinas). When we started the track, I heard his coach yelling that I was tired and he could beat me in the last 300. When we got to the track, I just took off and he just couldn’t hold on.”
Salinas, who finished second with a time of 15:50, didn’t hang his head afterward.
“I wanted to keep the lead, but it’s whoever gets it (in the end),” he said. “It was a good race, and I had a good time. The course was good, everything was good. What we have to keep doing is working on closing more of the gaps (on our team).”
Rounding out the top five for the boys were Rivera’s Julian Tavares (15:58), San Benito’s Mike Torres (16:06) and Lopez’s Osvaldo Gallegos.
Harlingen South won the team title with 71 points, followed by San Benito (90), PSJA High (109), Edinburg High (120) and Pace (129).