SA Friday Night Lights Recap

The San Antonio Friday Night Lights Cross Country meet at the Alamo City Youth Sports Fields on the West side of the city was a great success with nearly perfect conditions and many top teams racing.

After the opening junior varsity races, the first varsity race on the course was the 1A-4A Girls Division. As the sun was setting, the Latta family, also known as South Texas Heat Homeschool, set fire to the 2-mile course. Elin, Iris, Remy, and Reese pushed the pace through the first of two lap,s and they led over some of the top 3A and 4A girls in the entire State. No one was able to challenge the Latta sisters on the second lap as all four gradually pulled away from the competition. Elin won in 10:20.09 and was followed by Iris (10:41.75), Remy (10:59.68), and Reese (11:12.67). Big sister Addyson gave the team their fifth scoring runner when she crossed the finish line in 12:45.22, good enough for 21^st place.

The Lytle girls made a statement with their second-place finish. Frances Scotello led the team with a 12^th-place finish in 12:14.02, and they had a tight 1-5 grouping of 47 seconds, which helped them to finish with 101 points as all five of their runners finished in the top 26. They were able to edge out Fredericksburg, sixth place at the 4A State meet in 2024, and Poth, fourth place at the 3A State meet in 2024. Svetlana Lopez, Lytle's #5 runner on Friday, was their top finisher at the Regional meet last year when she came in 12^th place.

Fredericksburg finished in third place with 107 points and looked solid. They were led by Rilyn Grona, the 2024 4A Regional champ and fourth-place finisher at the State meet. She posted a time of 11:35.23 to take fifth place. Abbi Brown followed in 11^th place, and Madalyn Kovar took 17^th place, but they could not match the 1-5 split of Lytle.

Poth kept rolling along and finished in a close fourth place. Brooklyn Albert and Katelyn Poth each finished in the top 10. Albert is one of the top returning 3A runners in the State after finishing sixth last year, while Katelyn Poth continues to improve. She finished 33^rd at the State meet, but appears ready for more this year after finishing in 11:54.83 last night.

Pleasanton and Canyon Lake each had quality team performances, finishing sixth and seventh, respectively. Pleasanton was led by Shalyn Gutierrez in 16^th place, and they had a 1-5 split of 1:09 while Canyon Lake was led by Eva Zabarcencu (10^th) and Sophie Eastland (14^th), but their 1-5 split was nearly three minutes.

San Antonio Christian also showed that they could be a very strong team by the end of the season. D'Vani Hernandez finished in sixth place in 11:44.30, and Danel Hernandez was 13^th in 12:19.45. Margaret Hunter and Jill Hilliard were the team's top two runners at last season's State meet when they finished third as a team and they were the team's #4 and #5 runners on Friday.

Huffman Hargrave put in a dominating performance in the 1A-4A Boys Division. Led by Anthony Zunig, who was the individual champion in 16:11.71 for the 5K course, they had four runners in the top-7 and all five scoring runners finished in the top-15. After Zuniga, their 2-5 runners all finished within 20 seconds of each other. Zuniga was basically unchallenged in the race as he won by over a minute.

Jose Ruiz of Fredericksburg was able to pull away from the rest of the trail pack to take runner-up honors in 17:19.74. Tristan Schenk (Canyon Lake) outsprinted the Huffman Hargrave trio of James Briggs, Antonio Sanchez and Braeden Perkins and Cody Heimers of Fredericksburg to take third place in 17:30.82.

Tilden McMullen County took second place as a team thanks to a 1-5 split of 42 seconds. Joseph Timms led the team with an eighth-place finish in 17:39.84. They tallied 105 points overall. Central Catholic and Del Rio, each larger schools, had 'B' teams compete and finish third and fourth, respectively.

Pleasanton was the next true small school to finish. They took fifth place with 149 points. Micah Klein led the team with his 9th-place finish in 17:43.31.  Fredericksburg showed that they could be a dangerous team with a pair of top-10 finishers and a third runner, Ivan Cop, who finished in 16^th.

The 5A-6A Varsity Girls promised to be a great competition with San Antonio Johnson entering at #8 in the preseason 6A rankings as well as teams like Brandeis, Canyon and Medina Valley who each had strong opening weeks of the season.

The lead group featured four runners from Johnson, two from Canyon and Ella Rodriguez from Medina Valley. The group stayed relatively close into the second mile and then over the final mile they started to spread out. At the finish line it came down to a full sprint from Isabella Porter (Johnson) and Madi Molinar (Canyon). Molinar was able to edge Porter to take the victory in 18:27.46 for the 5K. Porter settled for second place in 18:28.07 and was followed by teammates Emily Krot and Ariana Pinheiro Barreira in the next two spots.

The next three runners all broke 19 minutes with Scarlett Dusek (Canyon) taking fifth, Rodriguez was sixth and Kira Albino (Johnson) was seventh. Johnson's final scoring runner came through in 10^th place with Magdalana Williams in 19:14.65. The Jaguars had a 1-5 split of 46 seconds and a 1-7 split of 1:31 and they finished with 26 points.

Brandeis ran quite well to finish in second place with 58 points. Danelly Carrion was their top finisher taking eighth place in 19:02.92 and her teammates rolled in right behind her. Delilah Huntley (9^th), Caroline Walker (11^th), Anabella Palumbo (13^th) and Violet Ostrowski (17^th) came through in rapid succession between 19:12 and 19:29 to give the team a 1-5 split of only 27 seconds.

Canyon posted a strong third place performance behind Molinar and Dusek. Lauren Pardo and Allison Schoch came through in a near dead heat as their 3-4 runners and Mary Grace Peacock closed out their scoring runners in 32^nd place. Medina Valley finished in fourth place and showed that they could be a team to watch later in the season.

Last week, Clark's Aiden Adams and Titus Gill of SA Spartans each won their respective invitationals and on Friday night they went head-to-head. Those two along with Floresville's Kaden Cypert were able to pull away from the trail pack, but Cypert was not able to stay with Adams and Gill through the finish line. At the end, Adams clipped Gill by less than a second to win in 15:13.62 and Gill finished in 15:14.02.

The team title went to San Antonio Johnson thanks to their tightly back first four runners. Nicolas Repper-Molina and Kyle Wunderli came through in sixth and seventh with the same time, 15:35.58. Angel Olmo and Brett Packard were 12 seconds behind taking 12^th and 13^th, respectively. Ethan Aponte was the final scoring runner taking 22^nd in 16:11.59. The team's 1-5 split was a strong 36 seconds.

Brandeis finished in second place with 106 to hold off Medina Valley who had 118 points. Devin Malesich and Kian Pinilla-Jimenez were each part of the trail group and finished in the top-10 for Brandeis. Kyle Carpenter led Medina Valley with a fourth place finish as he out-kicked Malesich. Nicholas Castro gave MV a second runner in the top-20.

Sotomayor and O'Connor were the next two teams with 160 and 171 points, respectively. Each team had a pair of top-20 finishers. Ilias Braxton and Paul Wallace led the Sotocats while Silas Gonzalez and Hunter Cain were the leaders for O'Connor. Central Catholic posted a 29-second 1-5 split to nab sixth place in the team standings.

The racing conditions were superb with a flat course of short clipped grass and temperatures that dropped into the comfortable range with a nice breeze. The early season meet showed off some of the top individuals and teams in the San Antonio area.