Photo of Jacob Cantu (Lytle)
The TAPPS and UIL State meets were all held last week and San Antonio area schools had great success once again. Overall, there were four local teams who came away with State titles plus four more teams that ended up on the podium.
San Antonio Christian had an amazing performance winning both the boys and girls TAPPS 5A titles. Adrian Rule led the boys team by taking the individual gold medal with a time of 16:34.36. His teammates, Christian Tarver and Nathan Womack, finished third and fifth overall, while Collin Vines (10th) and Blaine Owen (15th) rounded out their scoring runners. It was a second consecutive State title for the team. Patrick Cummings led Saint Mary's Hall with his fourth-place finish.
The SACS girls team won the title by one point and Saint Mary's Hall finished in third place just four points behind. D'vani Hernandez and Danel Hernandez led SACS with top 15 performances. Saint Mary's Hall had three runners in the top-15 including Eleanor Scott in sixth and Micah Monteleone in seventh.
At the TAPPS 6A level Antonian took the boys team title with 54 points while TMI took the bronze medal and Central Catholic finished in fourth. Antonian's John Boland took home the individual title by nearly 30 seconds in 15:38.97. Overall, Antonian had four runners in the top-20 including Cyril Girgis (5th), Jonavon Lott (11th) and Luke Wurzbach (17th). Boland won the title over TMI's Ethan Garza who took home runner-up honors in 16:08.26. Rome Serratos and Henry Burgos gave TMI a trio of top-20 finishers. Central Catholic was led by the duo of Marcus Cecconi (9th) and Leonidas Bendele (10th).
In the 6A girls race, Antonian was the top local team with a fifth-place finish. Mackenzie Kanz was their top runner crossing the line in 13:02.44 to take 19th place. TMI finished three points behind Antonian despite having Dani Shelfo (4th) and Natalia Sandoval (8th) grabbing top-10 finishes.
The TAPPS 4A girls were headlined by Savannah Parker's performance. The sophomore from the Christian School at Castle Hills took the individual title by a hair finishing in 12:58.26 to nip Elizabeth Hamblin of Arlington Pantego Christian by 0.10s. Emma Lane of St. John Paul II followed in third place to help lead her school to a bronze medal. Lane's teammate, Abigail Garcia, and Peyton Eiland from the Geneva School of Boerne each picked up top-10 finishes. The St. John Paul II boys team finished in fourth place and were led by Patrick Bauknecht's 10th place finish.
In the TAPPS 1A division, freshman Sean O'Fiel finished in sixth place for Fredericksburg Heritage to lead the team to a sixth-place team finish.
In the UIL meet on Friday, the Lytle boys notched a second straight 3A State title. They finished with 68 points. Jacob Cantu was their top finisher in sixth place at 16:00.7 while brothers Diego Reyna and Adrian Reyna finished in 13th and 14th place, respectively. Cole finished as the runners-up with 104 points and were led by Caden Kitson who finished in 16th place. Great Hearts Northern Oaks grabbed ninth place and were led by Brayden Salzwedel who finished in 26th place. Stockdale's Cooper Warrick just missed out on a top-10 performance with his 16:20.3 result.
In the 3A girls race, Lytle edged out Poth as the top local team finishing in fifth place with 151 points while Poth was seventh with 157 points. Poth senior Brooklyn Albert took fourth place and finished the two-mile race in 11:43.4. She was nearly three seconds slower than last year, but finished two spots higher. Albert finished as the State runner-up as a freshman when she crossed the tape in 12:05.2. Juliet Alcott of Great Hearts Northern Oaks, the Regional Champion, finished in sixth place just five seconds behind Albert while Frances Scotello led the Lytle contingent with a 13th place finish. Randolph's Caroline Finley and Poth's Katelyn Poth were each top-20 finishers while Katherine Zinnante led Cole with her 23rd place finish.
After the 3A races came the 5A races with the Smithson Valley girls hoping to repeat as State champs. They fought valiantly and came up 12 points short of Lucas Lovejoy who took the title despite have a slower cumulative time among their top five runners. Lilly Koenig and Aubrey Pozzi led the way for the Rangers. Koenig was fourth in 17:57.0 while Pozzi took sixth in 18:08.3. Addison Knibbe and Skyler Fonseca each broke 19-minutes to finish 20th and 21st, respectively for them. Savanah Moya nabbed seventh place for New Braunfels and led her team to a ninth-place finish. Southside's Emarald Aguirre crossed the line in 25th place while Boerne Champion's Rebecca Bezerra and Emma Radtke took the next two spots.
The local 5A boys were not nearly as strong as the girls with only one team, Boerne Champion, qualifying for the meet. The Chargers finished in seventh place and were led by Shawn Edwards and Brayden Scott who each finished in the top-50. Lockhart's Ethan Herrera was the top local finisher in 27th place and a time of 16:09.1.
The final races on Friday were the 1A races where Utopia had a pair of girls and one boy running.
On Saturday, a quartet of local 4A girls teams toed the starting line. Davenport won the Region title by 17 points over Fredericksburg, but at the State meet they only topped them by one point. Davenport finished fourth with 175 points while Fredericksburg was fifth with 176. Rilyn Grona of Fredericksburg was the top local with a 10th place finish in 11:34.4. It was her fourth straight top-10 finish at the State meet. Wimberley's Corina Joyce and Navarro's Lilia Flo were the only other top-20 finishers. However, there were nine girls in the top-50 from the area. Kendall Fallon led Davenport with her 32nd place finish while her sister, Macie Fallon, was 45th.
The 4A boys featured Floresville who finished in ninth place. Kaden Cypert led the way with a seventh-place finish in 15:38.5. Fredericksburg's Jose Ruiz was the next best local taking 43rd place nearly a minute behind Cypert.
In the 6A girls race, Steele's Kassia Kozarski was the top local runner breaking into the top-20 with her time of 18:18.6. Canyon's Madi Molinar was the only other runner to break the top-40 with her 34th place finish. Johnson was the top local team finishing in seventh place with Emily Krot leading the way in 42nd place with her time of 18:39.9.
Clemens made the most of their first appearance at the 6A boys State meet with an eighth place finish. They were led by Jayce Love in 15th place in a time of 15:30.8, but he was not the top local finisher. That honor belongs to Clark's Aiden Adams who finished one spot in front of Love in 15:27.6. Johnson's Nicolas Repper-Molina was the third local to finish in the top-20. Reagan's Logan Martinez crossed the line in 31st place while Churchill had a pair of runners in the top-50, Caleb Esquivel and Zach Hudson.
Stacey's Jarred Dunn was the only runner of note at the 2A level for the San Antonio area. He finished in 35th place in a time of 17:54.8.
On October 25, the South Texas Heat won the Girls Texas Homeschool State title with a total of 23 points. Elin Latta was the individual champion in 17:27.65 while Iris Latta was second and Remy Latta was third. Reese Latta had to settle for fifth place while Addyson Latta crossed in 14th overall to give the sisters a dominating team title.
In the Boys Homeschool State meet the San Antonio Patriots finished in fifth place while the San Antonio Spartans took sixth place. Titus Gill of the Spartans finished third place individually in a time of 15:56.7. The Patriots had three runners in the top-20 with Aiden Stout, Christian Helwig and Gavin Van Wyngaarden all securing the spots.