After a short hiatus, the Alvarado High School cross country team will be making a return to the state meet this year. The boys team and the girls top runner, Abby Olague, qualified for state at the Region II-4A Cross Country Championships on Monday.
Neither team won their respective district races, however the boys (4th) and the girls (5th) placed higher than the teams that beat the at the district meet two weeks ago.
“Cross country can be a funny sport,” coach Daryl Bishop said. “Different conditions and different courses can have a big impact on how an individual or team may perform. The weather today wasn’t great but our runners fought through it and competed. That’s all I can ask of them.”
By placing fourth the boys team was the final team to qualify from Region II, finishing 15 points higher than fifth place Pittsburgh and only five points behind third place Anna.
Junior Isaac Arredondo paced the Indians with a time of 17:50.01 while senior Enrique Caraveo finished less than a second later at 17:50.83. All five Indian runners placed in the top 33 with the other three finishing in a pack at 30th (Jorge Nava), 32nd (Kaleb Arredondo) and 33rd (Elliot Moncada) respectively.
“It’s great to have those individual kids who can finish at the top but advancing as a team is much more about finishing as a pack, as a team,” Bishop said. “There were teams that had two kids finish in front of our first kid, but their other runners may have been out of the top 50. It takes a complete team to advance.”
For the girls, Abby Olague placed seventh overall with a time of 11:56.31 and was the highest finisher among runners that did not also qualify for state as part of a team. The top 10 finishers who were not part of an advancing team advanced to the state meet as individuals.
As a team the girls narrowly missed advancing as they placed 5th, only 18 points behind fourth place Canton. Lailah Utnage and Andrea Harris both placed in the top 40 at 27th and 38th respectively. Other finishers for the Lady Indians were Amy Olalde, Keysha Gil, Genesis Huerta, and Heaven Segovia.
“I hate that our girls team missed it but I am over the top excited about Abby getting to run at state,” Bishop said. “She has worked hard and to see it pay off with a trip to state in her senior year is outstanding.”
This will be Olalde’s second trip to state as she also ran as a freshman. This will be the seventh appearance at state for the AHS cross country team in the last 10 years. There have been three trips for the boys and four for the girls.