BY MARK MOLINA | THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
With a league title and spots at the Region IV-5A meet on the line, the Mercedes Tigers athletes rose up and clearly separated themselves from the pack.
Mercedes’ Soledad Cruz and Dominic Cavazos were crowned champions after sweeping the top individual spots at the District 32-5A cross country meet Saturday morning at the BISD Encampment Grounds in Olmito.
Cruz finished the 5K course in 20 minutes, 4.5 seconds, while Cavazos did the same for the boys with a time of 16:36.6.
It was the second in a row for Cavazos, who bided his time Saturday before making a move to the front of the pack.
“It’s my senior year and I didn’t want to come home with second or third, especially because I wanted to help my team as best I can,” he said. “The time and pace was really slow and I knew if I would’ve took off, those behind me would have took off with me and it would have been a faster race, but the outcome wouldn’t be the same. I did what as best to win the race and if it had to be a slow time, that’s what I did.”
Donna North’s Jesus Mora (16:43.5) finished second, Mercedes’ Julian Fuentes (16:47.4 finished third, Donna North’s Jorge Ponce (16:54.7) placed fourth and Lopez’s Cuvillier finished fifth.
The Tigers also won the overall team title with a score of 43, followed by Donna North (59), Donna (86), Porter (87), Edcouch-Elsa (109), Brownsville Veterans Memorial (135), Lopez (150) and Pace (201).
For the girls, Cruz separated from the rest of the field early, but had runners close behind for a majority of the race before pulling away in the third mile.
“It was a pretty tough race because I had two girls on me, but I was just trying to run a smart race,” she said. “The course was amazing, nice and smooth. It was a little tough, but with the pace the three girls (in front), it was pretty nice and at the end, I took off.”
Edcouch-Elsa’s Haley Villalpando (20:28.9) placed second, Donna North’s Jennifer Chacon (20:41.5) was third, Edcouch-Elsa’s Natali Mireles (21:11.5) finished fourth and Donna North’s Aylin Huerta (21:22.0) rounded out the top five.
Donna North won the girls team title with 38 points, followed by Edcouch-Elsa (42), Mercedes (69), Brownsville Veterans (75), Donna (128) and Pace (146). Lopez and Porter were incomplete with less than five participating runners.
While the Metro-area schools aren’t moving on to regionals as a team, they will be represented as several runners finished in the top 10.
Lopez’s Cuvillier is one of those runners as his fifth-place finish will send the senior to regionals for the first time.
“It was real tiring, but I kept thinking in my mind that I had to go (to regionals), it’s my last year,” he said. “I kept on pushing myself to stay with the people in front.”
Porter’s Jesus Delgadillo, Sherard Anabwani and Balmoris Deodanes finished in eighth, ninth and tenth, respectively to qualify.
The race strong trio began the race strong, leading the group of runners for a large part of the first mile, but would fall back into the second tier during the second.
Anabwani, the only senior of the bunch said he was in high spirits since a majority of the Porter team will return next season.
“It’s a blessing to make it because we put work in all year,” he said “Our goal at the start f the race was to get three in the top 10 to have a chance, but we were a poi t short to Donna. I told the guys not to worry because three of us made it, but a lot our coming back next year because they’re juniors.
“Hopefully they can make it a team.”
Despite missing out by a single point as a team, head coach Jose Espitia was glad to see his team be in the mix, even if the rest of the district wasn’t expecting them to.
“The main thing I told the guys is that nobody expected us to be here and we knew we were working hard,” he said. “You have to work hard on your own and then make noise when it counts. “We’ve been trying to reignite the spark of a running tradition at Porter High School.
“ The boys were ready, but unfortunately we missed it by one point.”
Also heading to regionals for the girls side are BVM’s Valeria Gamez with a sixth-place finish and Porter’s Estrella Medellin.
The Region IV-5A meet will be on Oct. 23 in Corpus Christi.