Valley runners shine at San Antonio meet

Rio Grande Valley cross country teams, including Los Fresnos and Hanna, were among the top finishers in Saturday’s University of Texas at San Antonio Invitational.

The most impressive individual showing was by Mercedes’ Alex de la Garza, who won the high school boys Gold “Elite” Division in 14 minutes, 47 seconds over a 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) course.

Hanna coach Jaime Vasquez said de la Garza’s time is believed to be the best in the state for a high school runner so far this cross country season.

Regarding his own squad, which placed ninth in the Gold Division, Vasquez said, “We did pretty well considering the runners on my team continue to improve their times. Overall, I was a little disap-pointed that we didn’t finish higher as a team, but I was encouraged with the times.”

PSJA Memorial won the boys Gold Division with 133 points. FEAST home school was second with 168 followed by Edinburg North (175), Corpus Christi Carroll (179), PSJA North (204), Sharyland (253), Lock-hart (272), Laredo Alexander (296), Hanna (298) and Weslaco East (303).

Mission High, PSJA High and Donna were 11th, 12th and 13th with 358, 371 and 380 points, respec-tively.

Of the top 15 teams in the boys Gold Division, nine were from the Valley.

Individually for Hanna, Brandon Broden was 10th (15.35), Arturo Ibarra 26th (16:08), Kevin Vasquez 66th (16:49), Javier Zamora 84th (16:58) and Chris Perez 113th (17:23). Broden, Ibarra and Vasquez all ran personal-best times.

Also in the boys Gold Division, St. Joseph Academy’s Andres Delgado was 24th (15:59) and Louie Tijer-ina was 26th (16:02).

Los Fresnos won the Class 5A boys division with 103 points. McAllen High was second with 149 points and Carroll was third with 153.

For the Los Fresnos boys, Juan Izaguirre was fifth (16:27), Juan Zapata was ninth (16:38), Sylvester Fernandez was 16th (16:50), Jesus Rojas was 20th (16:58) and Abraham Izaguirre was 53rd (17:41).

The Los Fresnos Lady Falcons enjoyed another successful outing by taking fourth place in the girls Gold Division with 170 points behind FEAST home school (119 points), PSJA North (126) and San Antonio Reagan (156).

Individually, Julie Amthor of Smithson Valley won the girls Gold Division two-mile race in 11:48. Gabriela Salazar of PSJA Memorial was second in 11:50. Runners from FEAST took third and fourth.

Samantha Fish led Los Fresnos by finishing fifth in 12:15.

Rounding out the finishes for the Los Fresnos girls were Carolyn Urbis 18th (12:52), Elia Santamaria 21st (12:53), Alice Ross 46th (13:15), Cora Gonzalez 80th (13:41), Nancy Hernandez 102nd (14:07) and Katia Vega 132nd (14:40).

For St. Joseph, Katrina Lambert and Bethany Dawson were 16th (13:41) and 35th (14:21), respectively, in the Class 3A girls division, while Alex Rodriguez and Miguel Bartilla were 63rd (18:45) and 75th (18:56), respectively, in the 3A boys division.

Saturday’s UTSA meet gave public-school athletes a chance to run on the course that will be used for the Region IV meet in early November. TAPPS schools, such as St. Joseph, also will be using the same course for their state meet later this year.