BY NATE KOTISSO | STAFF WRITER
It’s become a bit of a broken record this cross country season: the Sharyland High girls team won another meet.
The team win is much sweeter for the Rattlers, whose long road back to rebuilding its program from the time one high school became two high schools culminated Wednesday in their first district title since the split in 2014.
“We fell a couple points short of the district title last year,” Sharyland High girls cross country coach Melissa Dearth said. “It’s (rebuilding the program) has been hard on the kids, but they really committed to it in the summer. They’re also a year older, and you can tell that experience is finally paying off. I also have a great varsity assistant in coach Mario Garcia. Whatever we needed to do to help the kids, we did it.”
The Rattlers posted a lean score of 28 thanks to a strong contingent of Sharyland High runners finishing in the top 10. Andrea Gallardo (20 minutes, 8.5 seconds), Arianna Gomez (20:10.2) and Samantha Guerrero (20:17.5) finished third, fourth and fifth in the 5,000-meter race. Danielle Salinas (20:44.2) and Sidney Bravo (20:58.1) weren’t far behind either, taking seventh and ninth.
La Joya Palmview’s Bailey Villalon won the individual race (19:59.3) while Sharyland Pioneer’s Nydia De la Garza (20:5.7) was the runner-up.
“They ran about as well as I expected,” Dearth said. “I wasn’t exactly happy with the times although the course was a little bit different than the one they ran at (Round Rock) McNeil (on Sept. 29). We had a couple minor injuries, but they were able to persevere. I was also glad to see Sidney perform at this meet as a sophomore. We have one senior out of seven, and we’re still in good shape.”
Sharyland Pioneer was locked in a tighter race on the boys side with PSJA Memorial’s Cruz Gomez and a balanced Rio Grande City squad nipping at their heels.
Gomez owns the third-fastest 5K time in the country after running a sub-15-minute time at the Round Rock McNeil Invitational two weeks ago. He tempered his pace and still won the 5K on Wednesday (15:49.8), but the Diamondbacks had enough balance to win the district championship.
“He’s (Gomez) the best runner in the state and coach (Leroy) Perez does a great job,” Sharyland Pioneer boys XC coach David Munson said. “PSJA Memorial becomes a serious threat because going up against Cruz is like facing four runners at once, so we have to get a little bit more from everyone on race day. I was counting on my third through seventh runners to get in front of their third, fourth and fifth man.”
Marcos Garza (17:03) and Cesar Ramirez (17:20) placed seventh and ninth to help the Pioneer team punch their ticket to the regional race Oct. 22 at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
“I would have liked to have them (Marcos and Cesar) up a little closer to the top, but we had six runners finish in the top 20. PSJA Memorial’s a threat. Rio Grande City got us by a few points last year, and it was good for us to return the favor this year. They’re all going to represent our area well.”