Cross Country: OHS girls dominate 5A competition in title run

LUBBOCK Odessa High girls cross country coach Tracy Borchardt thought her team had won the Class 5A portion of the Lubbock Invitational on Saturday, but she just didn’t know by how much.

She never imagined it would be by 34 points.

Sophomore Kirsten Taylor finished fourth in 12 minutes, 12.6 seconds to lead OHS to the win at Mae Simmons Park. The Lady Bronchos finished with 87 points to beat El Paso Eastwood (121) and San Angelo Central (126).

“I expected it to be by a couple of points, not by this wide of a margin,” Borchardt said. “My kids just did a fantastic job.”

Senior Lacy McKinney finished 10th in 12:35, freshman Gabby Valeriano was 23rd in 12:58.3, and sophomore Jordann Beason was 27th in 13:01.2. Tiffany Barrera returned from injury to finish 28th in 13:01.5.

“We just ran our race,” Borchardt said. “They did just what I asked them to do. The finish came out better than I have ever dreamed.”

The Permian girls team finished fifth with 151 points. Lakeisha Johnson was 12th and Bianka Cortez was 18th.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Permian girls coach Carl Chancellor said. “We have had a good season up to now. We just got to get back to work and get on the track.”

On the boys side, Odessa High finished fifth with 158 points and Permian was eighth with 236 points. Coppell won the meet with 51 points.

“You are hoping for a little bit better,” Odessa High boys coach Randy Thompson said, “but we still haven’t clicked on all cylinders yet. We are on the right track on where we want to go ... and I think by district we will be there.”

Hugo Corral was fourth in 16:32.8 and Terrance Martinez was 22nd in 17:24.7 for OHS.

Jarred Murray was 17th in 17:18.2, David Hernandez finished in 32nd and Chief Nunez was 50th for Permian.

“Obviously, we were hoping to do better,” Permian boys coach Jeep Shanks said. “Usually at some point during the year you have a day where things don’t go the way you want them to. (Saturday) was our day. We raced hard (Saturday). It just wasn’t there.”

From the area

>> On top: Andrews’ Tomi Lee Loyd won the Class 3A boys title in 16 minutes, 30.1 seconds. His team finished 15th with 356 points.

>> Near the top: Trey Bale’s third-place finish led Kermit to fourth place as a team. Bale finished in 16:57.7, while his team had 140 points.