Marcelo Parra, 5A State Champion
On Monday, the TAPPS State Cross Country meet was held for all six of its classifications at the Cottonwood Creek Golf Club in Waco, Texas. The San Antonio area finished with three individual champions and one team champion.
6A Recap
Antonian proved to have the top 6A team in the area as each of their teams finished in second place. For the girls, it was Micaela Villarreal leading the way with her second straight State title and third consecutive top-2 finish as she won by over 30 seconds in 11:59.21 on the 2-mile course. Teammates Paloma Valdes (10th, 13:14.25), Lola Buentello (14th, 13:20.63) and Hannah Maya (13:24.16, 16th) all finished in the top 20 for Antonian to give them 70 points to finish behind Dallas Ursuline Academy who had an incredible 25 points. Incarnate Word's Julianne Cernoch (13:29.11, 18th) was the only other local to finish in the top 20 and her Shamrocks took 6th place overall.
The boys race was a much closer finish with Antonian coming up only eight points short of State champion Houston St. Thomas, 50-58. Antonian's Todd Worth was the individual champion covering the 5K course in 16:25.67 to win by a comfortable margin. He had three teammates; Thomas McLin (8th, 17:13.37), John Boland (12th, 17:27.68) and Channing Shaeffer (16th, 17:46.43) all bring home top-20 honors. Central Catholic was unable to defend their title from year ago, but still finished in a strong third place with 83 points. Noah Fernandez (5th, 16:44.54) and Andrew Rivas (6th, 16:50.15) led the charge with top-10 finishes while Marcos Serda (14th, 17:34.39) gave the team a strong third runner.
5A Recap
At the 5A level, there were four scoring teams from San Antonio with TMI leading the way in fourth place with 140 points. San Antonio Christian senior Madi Schmitt was the top local finisher taking third place in 12:41.72. Her teammate, Danel Hernandez (8th, 13:18.98), also finished in the top-10., but the team could only finish in 10th. Olivia Talley led TMI with a 6th place finish in 13:09.53 while Kennedy Fenno (14th, 13:31.61) provided a top-20 performance. They also had two other runners finish in the top-30 to help them finish fourth. Anna Vaquiax of Saint Mary's Hall finished in 10th place in 13:21.25.
The 5A boys were dominated by the local schools with TMI winning the State title with 54 points and San Antonio Christian was second with 55 points. Each team had four runners finish in the top-20, but the difference was TMI getting three runners in before SACS put their second runner across the finish line. Saint Mary's Hall added an 8th place finish with 261 points.
Marcelo Parra (TMI, 16:09.53), Adrian Rule (SACS, 16:13.87) and Franco Parra (TMI, 16:24.39) went 1-2-3 in the standings and each ran faster than the winning time in 6A. TMI also had Wells Peterson (6th, 16:45.45) and Ethan Garza (11th, 17:04.67) each finish well. SACS was able to bunch in Jack Hawkins (8th, 16:52.39), Nathan Womack (9th, 16:53.81) and Jay Hunter (20th, 17:39.28). Christopher Chan (17th, 17:21.54) of St. Mary's Hall was the only other local in the top-20.
Small Schools
After the 5A and 6A divisions there were not many local runners at the State meet. In 4A girls, Maeve Sullivan (6th, 13:14.07) of John Paul II and Grace Detterick (10th, 13:25.62) of Geneva School of Boerne each finished in the top-10 while JPII took sixth with 177 points. Adrian de los Santos (16th, 18:23.10) of Holy Cross was the only local to finish in the top-20 4A boys while Geneva was seventh as a team.
At the 1A level, teammates Tatum North and Anne Kate Goodson of Ambleside of Fredericksburg finished in the top-10, but they did not have a full team at the meet. In 1A boys, Universal City First Baptist Academy finished in fifth place with 148 points and were led by Ayden Bendele's 16th place finish.
What's Next
I will be doing live recaps for the UIL State meet on Friday and Saturday online on the tx.milesplit.com website.