By MARK MOLINA | STAFF WRITER
For Los Fresnos seniors Brianna Alex and Luisa Cruz, the moment at the Region IV-6A track & field meet won’t be too big for them.
In fact, the duo will feel right at home as it will step out onto the San Antonio Heroes Stadium track together for the fourth consecutive year this weekend.
Alex, who will compete in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles as well as the mile relay, and Cruz, who will try her hand in the 100 and also the mile relay, are four-year varsity letter winners on the team and have spent their time being each other’s biggest support system.
“ It’s been pretty cool to have someone next to me all four years,” Cruz said. “Although we do butt heads a lot, we still have the same type of goals. It’s been really great to be next to her. We have girls always coming in and leaving, but it’s always been me and her. It’s been pretty cool.”
Though the ride this season will be their last, Alex said she has enjoyed it thus far.
“ We’re two out of the only three seniors that have been on varsity since freshmen year,” Alex said. “We have been to regionals all four years together, so we’ve kind of been like ride or die, OG since the beginning. So it’s bittersweet ending it all together, and seeing our journey from the very beginning and seeing how much we’ve grown together.”
This season’s road has been one with individual bumps for both athletes.
After qualifying for the state meet in the 100 hurdles as a junior, Alex went into the offseason ready to train so that she could duplicate and even surpass what she did last season.
With that came a lot of pressure for the senior hurdler.
“ I pretty much worked hard every day in practice, worked on my technique, making sure I eat right and doing all the extra stuff to make it to this point,” Alex said. “It was really rocky with a couple of little injuries along the way and a lot of pressure. There was a lot of talk about, ‘What college are you going to?’ ‘Are you going to sign anywhere?’ So there’s a lot of pressure with that.”
Alex eventually decided on the University of the Incarnate Word and tossed all the added pressure aside.
The senior earned gold medals at the District 32-6A meet in both the 100 and 300 hurdles, and placed first at the District 31/32-6A area meet in the 100 hurdles with a meet-record time of14.25 seconds and second in the 300 hurdles (45.75), her only Rio Grande Valley loss in either hurdling event.
Alex also bested her top times from one year ago in every race this season, something Los Fresnos girls track coach Brent Blackman said shows the type of worker she is.
“ (Alex’s success) says a lot about her,” Blackman said. “She has a lot of outside pressure on her. She put that pressure on herself and was able to perform through that pressure. At the start of the year, she was already running faster than she ran at the end of the year last year, and that’s because she put in the work.”
After a long season Alex is feeling the fatigue, but she is hoping to push through to the state meet and improve on an eighth-place finish last year.
“ Honestly, my body is tired,” Alex said. “I’m just pushing through it and trying to keep my body healthy. I’ve made a lot of progression from last year. I ended with a 14.9 and this year, I’m sitting at a 14.2. Hopefully, I can run a 14 flat this week and even into the 13s. Last year, state opened my eyes. It’s completely different than running in the Valley. It opened my eyes and got me a lot more excited this year and prepared me for what’s to come.”
Cruz’s performances from the start weren’t as smooth, after coming off a state championship powerlifting season in the 132-pound weight class.
So with the seasons overlapping, Cruz was splitting her time in both sports and having to make decisions on either sport at times.
“ At the beginning of the season, I wasn’t really focusing on track,” Cruz said. “I was more towards powerlifting because that season was going to be over before track. So my head wasn’t all on track, so that’s why I feel like I had kind of a rough start. But now that I’m 100 percent track, it’s been getting a lot better and I’m just taking it a week at a time.”
The 200 was usually Cruz’s race, but with Alex being out at the PSJA Flying Ws meet and the 1,600 relay being a no-go, Cruz decided to try the 100 — a race she only ran one other time that season.
Cruz placed first in the 100 with a time of 12.40, topping her only other time of the season of 13.08.
The senior sprinter duplicated that time to win the District 32-6A championship and then went on to the District 31/32-6A area meet and posted an area-meet record 12.22.
Blackman said Cruz overcame the slow start and the extra muscle mass from powerlifting to carry a heavy workload of the 800 and 1,600 relays as well as the 200 before switching her to the 100 and 1,600 exclusively.
“ Luisa chose to go be a powerlifter and was a state champion,” the Los Fresnos coach said. “She put on a little pressure on her running after putting on some muscle mass. She did it to go be a state champion and now, to be running at the level she’s running at, better than she ran last year, just says a lot for her work ethic. She loosened up and now she’s running like the beast we knew she was.”
All that’s left for Cruz is to finally break through to state after falling short with a fourth-place finish in the 200 last season. She’s put the shortcoming in the back of her mind mostly and is ready to give it one last go.
“ If I have a bad meet I go into the next like it didn’t happen. I’m good at forgetting bad races and I’m good at not letting it affect my next race,” Cruz said. “I am trying to stay positive and have to remember I’ve made finals there before. I’ve been close, now this time I just have to try and make it.”