HIGH-SCHOOL

Tascosa Rebels qualify for UIL state cross country meet

LEE PASSMORE

Runners take off at the start of the Region I-5A boys cross country meet Saturday at Mae Simmons Park in Lubbock. Tascosa runners, from left, are Anthony Navarrette, Reid Splawn (963), Paul Crawford (960) and Austin Crawford (959) as the Rebels qualified for the state meet for the first time in the program's history.

LUBBOCK — It wasn’t the greatest of days on paper for the Tascosa boys cross country team Saturday at the Region I meet at Mae Simmons Park.

But it was good enough to earn a berth in the state meet next weekend.

Despite having only one runner in the top 25, Tascosa managed to secure the third and final team berth out of Class 5A for the state meet in Round Rock. Tascosa finished with a total of 161 points, barely securing third place in the team standings.

This is the first time an Amarillo ISD team has gone to the state cross country meet since Amarillo High’s girls made back-to-back trips in 1999 and 2000, and it’s the first time for the Tascosa boys.

“It’s pretty nice,” Tascosa coach Sean Hargrove said. “We had some guys who were hurt but still ran hard. I think that will make it easier to run next week.”

Senior Jacob Campos, who won the District 2-5A individual title a week earlier, was the top finisher for Tascosa, taking 24th place with a time of 15 minutes, 52.93 seconds. That’s a respectable finish, but not necessarily one that would be expected to carry a team to a berth at the state meet.

In tallying the final numbers after his team finished, Hargrove wasn’t convinced that the score was low enough to earn a place in the top three.

“We scored 161 points,” Hargrove said. “I didn’t think that would be good enough. We got lucky.”

But Tascosa compensated for not having a top-10 individual with a pack mentality. Close behind Campos was Reid Splawn in 26th (15:59.60) and Paul Crawford in 28th (16:06.48).

With freshman Anthony Navarrete finishing 46th (16:28.43) and senior Austin Crawford 72nd (16:47.51) out of the field of 183, that gave Tascosa balance.

“I told the guys we’d all worked so hard it would take care of itself,” Campos said. “Me and Austin have been here three years in a row, and we were so ready to go to state.”

Southlake Carroll easily won the team title with 27 points, followed by El Paso Eastwood with 119.

Now that Tascosa is going to the state meet, Hargrove said the best is yet to come for his team.

“I don’t think we ran our best race today,” Hargrove said. “The top four guys ran kind of what we were expected. We squeaked it out and No. 5, and that’s why we’re going to state.”