SA Friday Night Lights Recap

The San Antonio Friday Night Lights meet is one of the more popular meets in the San Antonio area and took place on Friday at the Alamo City Youth Sports complex. Some of the top teams in the State competed including at least 12 teams that appeared in the Cross Country Coaches Association of Texas preseason rankings.

The Alamo City Youth Sports course is a flat, grass course that consists of two or three loops depending on the race and generally leads to fast times. The first varsity race of the evening was the 1A-4A Girls and it featured seven ranked programs. Huffman Hargrave (#7 in 4A), Davenport (#5 in 4A) and Wall (#3 in 3A) battled it out for the top three positions and in a closely contest meet.

Huffman Hargrave junior Payton Miller took home the individual title in 11:16.92 while locals Jamie Bice (La Vernia), Eva Zabarcencu (Canyon Lake) and Caroline Finley (Randolph) followed in the next three spots. Miller's teammate, Brooklyn Lusk, was next across the finish line and it looked like they might run away with the team title. Wall's Keller Batla and Amelia Taylor both crossed the finish line before another Hargrave runner finished. Meanwhile, Davenport put four scoring runners in front of the Hargrave #3 finisher with Raelin Cortinas, Kendall Johnston, Audrey Orgill and Sophia Osborne all finishing within 33 seconds of each other.

Hargrave's Emille Olvera and Brinley Morace were the next two finishers after Osborne and now the team title came down to watching for #5 runners. Wall continued to stay close by getting their top four runners in before any #5 runner was done. Lily Jo Bliss (Davenport) outsprinted Dailyn Beam (Wall) to be the first #5 runner to finish, but when Braelyn Weller finished 12 seconds later it gave Huffman Hargrave a one-point victory over Davenport. Hargrave finished with 74 points while Davenport had 75 and Wall finished with 95. Floresville and La Vernia finished a very respectable fourth and fifth place. Canyon Lake was the only team other than the top three that had two finishers in the top-10 with Zabarcencu and Sophie Eastland (7^th). Overall, there were 27 full teams in the race.

The 1A-4A Boys race followed, and even though top 3A teams Lytle and Cole decided to run in the 5A-6A race it was still a competitive race. Marion senior Jayce Love dominated the individual race winning the 5K in 15:50.95, over 40 seconds faster than Randolph freshman Elijah Carbajal who nabbed the silver medal.

Sotomayor, a 6A school, ran a 'B' team in the race and ended up winning with 106 points. They were led by Christian De Dios (5^th) and Carter Royce (6^th) and they were the only team to have two runners in the top 10. Keene (#3 in 3A) ran a strong race putting four runners over the finish line before Sotomayor's #3 runner but had to settle for second place with 123 points when the Sotocats had their next three runners finish in quick succession and finish with a 1-5 split of 0:57. Keene was led by freshman Moises Zuniga who finished 8^th in a time of 17:09.54. Keene would have won the team title had entered Kainen Meeks in the 1A-4A race, but he ran in the 5A-6A race where he finished in 15^th place in a time of 16:07.95.

Davenport ended up in third place with 137 points because their first three runners all finished among the top-25 scorers. Graham Hatch led the way in 7^th place. Huffman Hargrave followed in fourth place (199 points) and then John Paul II came in fifth place as the first private school. Patrick Bauknecht led the way with a fourth-place finish. Randolph and Great Hearts Monte Vista each had three runners among the top-20 scorers despite finishing outside the top five teams.

In the 5A-6A Girls division it was not a surprise that the South Texas Heat, a home school team consisting of the five Latta sisters, took the team title. Elin Latta (16:51.99), Iris Latta (17:23.97), Remy Latta (17:54.50) and Reese Latta (18:01.90) dominated the 5K race and only Elaina Lucido (Corpus Christi Carroll) was able to stay close with her fifth-place finish in 18:08.25. Addyson Latta rounded out the scoring runners for the South Texas Heat with her 16^th place overall finish.

Boerne Champion (#5 in 5A) entered as the highest ranked big school in the race, but fellow 5A competitors Boerne and Medina Valley each finished ahead of them. Boerne took second place with 111 points thanks to a strong top four runners that all finished between 10^th and 25^th among scoring runners. Presley Merkens, the 5A 800m runner-up this past year, led the team with her time of 19:58.34. Medina Valley followed in third place with 127 points as they are making the switch from 6A back to 5A this year. Ella Rodriguez led them with a top-10 finish. Brandeis finished in fourth place overall as the top 6A team in the race with 137 points while Champion settled for fifth place despite Rebecca Bezerra taking sixth place individually.

In the 5A-6A Boys division, five of the top 10 runners all hailed from schools that compete at the 4A or smaller classifications. Kaden Cypert (Floresville), the 4A State champion in the 1600m ran nearly a full minute faster than the previous week with a winning time of 15:21.56. Following close behind him was Desmond Marino of Arete Hall. Ian Lopez (Basis Shavano), Jacob Cantu (Lytle) and Cole Durbin (Great Hearts Monte Vista) rounded out the small school runners who finished in the top-10.

In the race for the team title, O'Connor showed off a nice 1-5 split of 0:51. Silas Gonzalez, Dylan Ambrosio and Chris Esparza came across the line in quick succession with only 2.50 seconds in between them as they finished among the top-12 scoring runners. Diego Maltos and Hunter Cain gave them two more runners who ran faster than 17:00 to wrap up the team title with 94 points. Boerne Champion (#5 in 5A) finished in a strong runner-up position behind Shawn Edwards who finished third overall in 15:30.02.