By FREDDY GONZALEZ | Staff Writer
SAN BENITO — As Brownsville Rivera’s Andrea de la Rosa crossed the finish line, the realization that her high school career was nearing its end quickly began to sink in.
The senior, who won the girls District 32-6A cross country meet held Friday morning in San Benito, finished the race with a time of 20 minutes, 9.4 seconds; one minute in front of second-place finisher Nadia Sifuentes of Brownsville Hanna (21:12.8).
Despite the mixture of emotions for de la Rosa, the victory was her fourth straight district title and the eighth consecutive race she has won this year.
“ I’m sad that this was my final (district) race,” de la Rosa said. “I’m going to miss everybody when (the season) is done.”
While the senior might have won race in convincing fashion, the race was far from her best performance. Heavy rain Thursday wreacked havoc on the running course.
“ The course was muddy, and I know it wasn’t my best race,” de la Rosa said. “But I will continue to practice and get ready for regionals.”
Last weekend, the senior won the Harlingen ISD cross country meet with a time of 19:07, however, her personal best (18:26) was achieved last month at the Port Isabel meet.
Other notable individual finishers in the girls race were Los Fresnos’ Clarissa Tellez (21:33.6) who placed third, and Harlingen High’s Michelle Medina (21:51.3) and Brianna Rivas (22:02.5), who took fourth and fifth, respectively.
In the girls team race, Brownsville Hanna won first place with 36 points, Harlingen High was second with 53 points and Harlingen South took home third place with 70 points.
A young and driven Harlingen South team impressed, qualifying as a team with the third-place finish. Kimia Gonzalez finished in 10th place, followed by Sydney White (15th), Amiee Trevino (16th), Alex Perez (18th) and Kira Cano (20th).
“ I’m really proud of these girls because it’s a young team,” Harlingen South coach Renee Bennett said. “I’ve got three freshmen that run varsity, a couple of sophomores and a couple of juniors. I’m really proud of them because they did well.
“ This is the first time that we have advanced as a team in a while so they are all really excited, and they have worked hard all summer long.”
In the boys division, San Benito’s Joaquin Medina picked up a first-place finish with a time of 17:12.0. Medina finished just ahead of Harlingen High’s Danny Diaz (17:30) and Brownsville Rivera’s Julian Tavares (17:39.5).
In the boys team race, Brownsville Hanna finished first with 46 points, followed by Harlingen High (50) and San Benito (61). Harlingen South just missed out on qualifying for the regional meet as a team, finishing in fourth place with 76 points.
The Harlingen High boys team impressed in qualifying for the regional meet. Diaz led the Cardinals and Geovany Cisneros finished eighth, and they were followed by Ivan Montante (9th) Andrew Ruiz (15th) and Abel Montante (16th).
“ Although things didn’t go as planned today, it is always a good feeling to advance to regionals,” Harlingen High coach Efrain Ambriz said. “We are looking forward to competing in Corpus.”
Despite the fourth-place finish, Harlingen South’s Eric Lopez grabbed a regional spot. Lopez finished the race in fifth place with a time of 17:48.2.
“ I think Lopez did a good job,” Harlingen South coach Julian Robles said. “He’s been with the program for four years, and I’m glad that he made it. It was a tough field running against San Benito and Harlingen (High) in the mix, but he pulled through big time.”
Lopez was ecstatic to qualify for the regional meet for the first time in his high school career. Lopez became the first South runner to do so since 2013.
“ It feels amazing to qualify for regionals,” Lopez said. “In the offseason I really put in the work, and I’m happy that it paid off. The course was really wet and muddy, and just running through it my legs felt really heavy because of the water and the grass. It was just a bad combination.”
Lopez won the Port Isabel cross country race with a time of 15:35, and finished eighth at the Harlingen ISD meet last Saturday.
The regional meet will be held Oct. 22 at the Corpus Christi A&M campus.