BY JON R. LaFOLLETTE | STAFF WRITER
MISSION — Ana Bautista kick-started the track season Friday in familiar territory — out front and alone.
The Rio Grande City senior distance runner placed first in the girls 3200-meter run at the Steve Stark Relays at Richard Thompson Stadium with a time of 11 minutes, 45.39 seconds, besting teammate and runner-up Marlette Treviño by 40 seconds.
Despite the gold-medal effort, Bautista fell short of her intended time of 11:30, what would have been a new personal best.
“The first lap, I went too fast,” Bautista said. “I was already setting my time early, and another girl was out in front of me, so I caught up to her and put her behind me. I slowed down by the third lap, but that kind of threw off my times a bit.”
Just as they did a season ago, the Lady Rattlers look to distance running as a strong point. Bautista, Treviño and teammate Adrianna Cruz ranked among the Valley’s best in distance events in 2015 and look to do so again this year.
PALMVIEW PUPPIES
La Joya Palmview was among the most balanced girls teams in the Valley last year. Behind stout sprinting, consistent endurance runners and elite relay units, the Lady Lobos claimed the District 30-6A title.
But Palmview doesn’t have such continuity this year — not yet at least. At the Stark Relays, coach Claudia Bazan watched a crew of new faces and JV callups try to find their early-season niche.
“We threw a couple of them in the relays to see what we have in them right now,” Bazan said.“We’ve got a lot of freshman and sophomores, and we just want to see if they can handle the pressure.”
Bazan says she’s eyeing more than times as indicators for success. She wants to see if kids get nervous, how they cope with race-day anxiety and handle the baton during relays.
One of the returning faces is senior Mia Hinojosa, who ranked among the Valley’s best in the 200 dash last year. In an effort to get Hinojosa in shape, Bazan put her in the 400 dash — an event
Hinojosa hasn’t run since her freshman year. Still, that didn’t’ stop her from winning gold in the event with a time of 1:02.42.
“Coming out of that last corner was when the pain really started to kick in,” Hinojosa said. “I could feel it in my legs. But I know this is good for me. It’s only going to make me better.”
THE GOOD WITH THE BAD
Sharyland High girls coach Melissa Dearth started with the good news. Her 800-meter relay team came off the track after an impressive first outing, running splits of 26 and 27 seconds.
“This is the (4×200) team,” Dearth said. “We’ve found it.”
Then came the bad news: the team was disqualified for starting in the wrong spot.
“As soon as the red flag went up, I knew the race wasn’t going to count,” Dearth said. “But I still like what I saw in terms of effort. There are a lot of kids who are already hitting their marks in a lot of their events.”
Sharyland is looking for a bounce-back year. The Lady Rattlers finished fifth at district a season ago.
An individual standout Friday was sophomore Caleigh Hausenfluck, who placed first in the 100 hurdles (16.92) and the long jump (17 feet, 2.5 inches).