Hudson Haley cruises across the finish line at the McNeil Inv.

We didn't see the barn burner we thought would play out, but the boys Gold race was still good and entertaining regardless.

The No. 2 ranked 6A team in the CCCAT poll, Austin Vandegrift was their usually consistent selves and cruised to the team win. In part, their top runner Hudson Haley carried his weight and disallowed the Vipers to not slip in with the deepest race in the state.

Vandegrift executed their usual race plan in the first mile by being as calculated as one team could possibly be in the large field. Around the 3,000m Haley and teammate Kai McCullough had taken the reigns of the race and began to control it throughout.

The Viper's leader paced the race throughout and created space between him and San Antonio Reagan senior Gavin Chapa. The move was possibly with defensive intent to eradicate Chapa's turnover capabilities. 

2024 Boys Gold race

It worked as Haley seized the win with a time of 15:05 ahead of the confident running Chapa and his 15:11 finish. Joaquin De La Cruz (McKinney Boyd) got up for third in 15:18, Noah Strohman (Holliday) was fourth in 15:20, and rounding out the top five was Zachary Miller (San Antonio Brennan) with a finishing time of 15:20.

McCullough was able to supplement Haley with his sixth place finish and sophomore Collin Goodwin was tenth. The fourth and fifth scoring positions didn't provide their usual world beating performances and possibly succumbed to the same effects as much of the field.

Nevertheless, I'm sure if a somewhat off-day equals a 15:38 team average and a 1:08 spread like today's performance, Coach Sully will gladly take it.

Katy Tompkins turned in a solid performance in their first trip out of the Houston area and against their first run against this level of competition. They turned in a 16:31 average and were able to run within 51-seconds of one another. Senior Diego Reyes led the day for the Falcons with his 16:07 finish.

Boerne Champion continues to be rock steady as they finished third. The third ranked 5A team in the state ran a 16:21 team average and they got a big time 15:35 run from senior Luis Tovar and a 15:46 finish from Charlie Houck.