FREDDY GONZALEZ | Valley Morning Star
HARLINGEN — With the wind gusting in excess of 30 mph on Saturday at Boggus Stadium, the times of some of the competitors at the an-nual Harlingen Relays might have been affected. Nevertheless, the track & field meet went off without a hitch.
Harlingen High took home top honors on the boys side and Sharyland was the victor on the girls followed by Harlingen in second and Harlingen South in third.
“The team is really coming together, and is performing above and beyond my expectations. They are just an amazing group,” said Harlingen boys track coach Efran Ambriz. “The relay is a great gauge of overall team speed, even if the times weren’t that great because of the wind. But I think going down the road, we are going to see some amazing things out of this group.”
Harlingen finished with 167 points, Harlingen South finished second with 86 and Weslaco High rounded out the top three with 75 points.
Harlingen was able to place top three in the long jump thanks, in part, to some talented freshmen. Pedro Luna finished first with a leap of 21-06.00, Eric Quilantan finished second with a 20-11.00 and Jose Garcia placed third with a jump of 20-08.50.
Harlingen has a bye week before heading to the Weslaco Mid-Valley meet then the UTRGV Invitational.
South, meanwhile, might not have finished in the top spot, but its second place boys finish means there is plenty of room for growth.
“Harlingen’s for real and they’re a tough team, and they deserved it today because they ran really well,” said Harlingen South boys head coach Ralph De La Rosa. “We did some good things, but we have to get better in different areas and we have to start scoring some points in our relays.
“We’re still trying to find some combinations and today you saw some teams that have already found theirs and excelling, and other teams like us that are still looking.”
One area Harlingen South did particularly well was in the shot put where the Hawks placed first, third and fourth. Andrew Ott finished first for South with a throw of 55-01.00, Chase Harrell finished second and with a throw of 53-04.25 while Benjamin Ruiz placed fourth with a 47-04.00.
South’s is at Rio Hondo next week.