San Antonio XC Week #2 News and Notes

It was a light week of meets thanks to the crazy weather that blew in on Friday night to force the cancellation of the North East ISD, Northside ISD and San Antonio ISD cross country meets. Despite the cancellations there were still many local teams and athletes who posted outstanding performances over the weekend.

Statement Wins

The biggest meet of the weekend was the Westlake Chaparral Invitational, and the big winners were the Boerne Champion boys and the New Braunfels girls. All five Charger boys finished in the top-25 led by Sebastian Carvallo's eighth place finish and Shawn Edwards in ninth place. Overall, their 1-5 split was 28.17s. They finished with 72 points, which put them 27 points ahead of Bowie's second place.

The Unicorns won the girls title with only 43 points and they knocked off their two biggest competitors in the Region, Boerne Champion and Smithson Valley, in the process. Savanah Moya led the way taking second place in 18:05.57 and then her freshmen teammates, Tessa Shamblin and Halle Bryant, backed her up with fifth and sixth place performances, respectively. Sydney Wantuck and Raeleigh Hudnall gave them five runners in the top-20.

In the Rankings

The Cross Country Coaches Association of Texas puts out State rankings throughout the season. The following teams appeared in the first season rankings:

5A Girls: Smithson Valley (#2), Boerne Champion (#6), New Braunfels (#8)

5A Boys: Boerne Champion (#4)

4A Girls: Davenport (#5), Wimberley (#9), Fredericksburg (#10)

3A Boys: Lytle (#1)

Smithson Valley, Boerne Champion, New Braunfels and Davenport all competed at the Westlake Chaparral Invitational. The Smithson Valley girls finished in third place but were without two of their top runners in Aubrey Pozzi and Skyler Fonseca. Boerne Champion girls took second place and were led by Rebecca Bezerra who took home bronze medalist honors. The Davenport girls finished in 12^th place as the lone 4A team in the race. As previously mentioned, the New Braunfels girls and Boerne Champion boys took home the Westlake team titles.

The Wimberley girls took home another team title when they won the Lockhart's 39^th Annual Hippensteel meet with 48 points. Corina Joyce (12:14.4) and Abigail Wymore (12:42.0) finished second and third, respectively on the 2-mile course. Fredericksburg was off for the week.

The Lytle boys ran in the big school division at the Medina Valley Invitational and came in third place. Jacob Cantu led the team with a fourth-place finish covering the 5K course in 16:25.72. Adrian Reyna gave the team a second top-10 performance with his seventh-place finish.

Welcome Back Brady!

Smithson Valley junior Brady Solansky returned to competition for the first time in nearly 18 months at the Westlake Chaparral Invitational. As a freshman, she was the Region IV-5A champion and finished third in the State in cross country and in the early part of the track she posted times of 2:14.01 in the 800m, 4:57.66 in the 1600m and 10:45.56 in the 3200m. Her last competition came on March 15, 2025 when she ran the 800m at the New Braunfels Unicorn Invitational. Since that time, she has battled through injuries, and Saturday was her first chance to compete. She comported herself quite well at the Chaparral Invitational and finished 20^th among a field of some of the top 5A and 6A runners in the State.

A Nice Change

Kerrville Tivy dropped down from UIL 5A to 4A this year and it is already having positive effects for the Antlers. Over the weekend, they ran in the Medina Valley Invitational Small School division and both the boys and girls came away with team titles. Uriah Aguilera and Pedro Hernandez swept the top two spots in the boys race and teammate Hudson Cowart finished in fifth as they easily won with 38 points. The girls were even more dominant with only 27 points. Ivery Evans was the individual champion and then Hattie Gilbreath (third), Victoria Hernandez (fourth) and Cora Cowart (ninth) all finished inside the top-10.

Around the City

There was a nice recap of the Westlake Chaparral Invitational that appeared on the website on Saturday and you can read all about it here.

Medina Valley hosted a fairly large meet with both big school and small school sections. The Small School Division was dominated by the Tivy Antlers who swept both team competitions. Their boys won with 38 points and they were led by a pair of youngsters, sophomore Uriah Aguilera and freshman Pedro Hernandez. Aguilera won the 5K race in 17:33.82 while Hernandez took second in 17:39.73. Their top five runners all finished inside the top-20. Pearsall finished in second with 79 points behind Alexander Peralta (third) and Serapio Vasquez (eighth). Pleasanton was the third place squad with 100 points. Jefferson's Miguel Cervantes finished fourth overall in 17:57.54.

The Tivy girls only scored 27 points, but it was a close race with Bandera who finished with 40 points. In addition to freshman Ivery Evans winning the 2-mile race in 13:02.30, Hattie Gilbreath, Victoria Hernandez and Cora Cowart all finished in the top-10 and Danna Cisneros was their #5 runner in 17^th place. Bandera was led by Kaley Fried in fifth place while Milesia Casas (eighth), Aubrey Moore (10^th) and Cassi Williams (11^th) all followed close behind her. Olivia Rynarzewski's 16^th place finish made them the first team with five runners across the line. Kennedy's Haydee Vail-Lopez took second place individually.

The Large School Boys division had 15 teams and was won by Sotomayor with 73 points while Medina Valley had 76 points and Lytle had 86 points. Ilias Braxton led the Sotocats with a second place finish in 15:58.35 behind only Ian Lopez of BASIS Shavano who won the 5K race in 15:51.65.  Matthew Gomez gave Sotomayor a second runner in the top-5 and then Malachi Flores, Christian De Dios and Mykah Guzman all finished tightly packed inside the top-20. Medina Valley had three runners in the top-10 with Brayden Riley, Kyle Carpenter and Nicholas Castro, but no one else inside the top-20. Lytle had two runners among the first 10 and three in the top-20.

In the Large School Girls division Boerne edged out Medina Valley by the narrow margin of two points. Ella Rodriguez (Medina Valley) won the individual 5K title in 18:50.19 while Boerne's Presley Merkens and Sutton Amerman each finished in the top-5. MV's next two runners were Reese Marshall (seventh) and Kyndall Kirkpatrick (11^th) followed by two from Boerne, Penelope Kirk (14^th) and Lucille Frank (15^th) and then Annalee Barden (20^th) of Medina Valley made the score 31-32 in favor of Boerne with one runner each remaining. Ansley Schiller (Boerne) finished one spot in front of Peyton Price (Medina Valley) to provide the final scoring margin. Taft's Adelyn Miller was a strong runner-up posting a time of 18:57.50.

The Lockhart boys won the 39^th Annual Hippensteel meet with 45 points. Ethan Herrera led them with a third-place time of 10:12.3 on the 2-mile course. Irving Ferretiz, Eli Estrada, Daniel Martinez and Rafael Urbina gave them five runners among the first 12 finishers. Marion's Jayce Love won another race with his time of 10:04.6.

Wimberley won the Hippensteel girls race with 48 points. Corina Joyce and Abigail Wymore led the team by grabbing the silver and bronze medals. Randolph's Caroline Finley was the individual champion in 12:07.4 on the 2-mile course. Avery Wymore, Kate Sharp and Miranda Chio gave Wimberley five runners in the top-12.

The Canyon girls traveled to the Southlake 2 Mile race at Bob Jones Park. They finished in third place as a team and had all five runners break 12 minutes. Madi Molinar led the way in ninth place with a time of 11:10.8 while Scarlett Dusek and Paola Vargas-Llanos added top-20 finishes.

What's Coming Up

Locally, teams will be competing on Friday at the Hays CISD XC Invitational at the 5-mile Dam Soccer Field Complex and the New Braunfels Long Creek Invitational. On Saturday, the Bandera Steve Golemon 5^th Annual Invitational, the Edgewood ISD Relay, and the 23^rd Annual Poth Pirate Invitational all take place.