Lady Apaches win cross-country district title
The Lady Apaches took down their opponents on Monday, winning District 27-4A and advancing to the regional meet as district champ.
The Gonzales Apaches cross-country boys’ team took third place at the meet, advancing to the regional meet for the first time in two years.
SEGUIN — Both the boys’ and girls’ cross-country teams for the Gonzales Apaches had separate goals coming into their District 27-4A meet on Monday at Seguin. Head coach Cully Doyle wanted his girls’ squad to take the district title while the boys needed to knock off one team to get to the regional meet as third place. Each accomplished their goals with stellar performances at Starcke Park.
“I tell you what, I was very impressed because we set goals in the beginning of the year, we set goals way back in the summer and I asked these girls to commit and they did,” Doyle said. “The summer commitment was huge. We talked about today way back in the summer. We started cross-country practice on May 31 and these girls committed. I had a group of 14 girls committed and it was amazing to see. We ripped that race yesterday.”
Veronica Moreno led the way, placing second overall with her time of 12:06. Haley Garza took fourth, Romy Cantu fifth, Krystalynn Buesing eighth and Maura Garcia 10th. Hannah Rowland finished in 14th and Michaela Garcia placed 27th.
“My top five girls were in the top 10,” Doyle said. “That was huge for us. My number six, she ripped one, she ran her fastest time.”
“I’ve asked them to really step up and work hard and we’ve done a lot of things and they did it and it paid off.”
The Lady Apaches torched their competition as they finished out with 29 points, beating out Wimberley who had 51, La Vernia had 63 and Navarro had 84 points.
On the boys’ side, the Apaches were able to knock off Navarro to snatch a regional qualifying slot. La Vernia won with 23 points, followed by Wimberley with 58, Gonzales with 72 and Navarro with 81.
“Our goal on the boys’ side was to get top three,” Doyle admitted. “We knew how tough our district was. La Vernia is ranked fifth in the state.”
Antonio Hernandez led the way for the Apaches with his ninth-place finish, timing in at 18:21. Angel Pizano was 14th, Suriel Rangel was 15th, Keisey Ramirez was 16th, Fabian Cardoza was 18th, Juan Jordan was 22nd and Sesar Almaguer took 27th. Their collective efforts allowed the boys’ team to reach the regional meet, something they weren’t able to do the last two years.
“They had a pretty good summer with our young freshmen,” Doyle mentioned. “Antonio Hernandez ran an awesome race. Got to give him a whole lot of credit.”
Doyle also mentioned how well the others raced saying the team “had a good showing.”
“We knew that we could chip away and knock off a team. We knew La Vernia was hard to take the top spot from. I was up front with the guys, our goal was to get in the top three. If we can do better than that, great, but we had to take a step forward and that was our step forward for the program.”
Now both teams are headed to Corpus Christi for the Region IV-4A meet. Doyle believes his girls’ team is in the top eight in the region. However, only four can reach the state meet as a team. The goal is set to get the girls’ team in and hopefully a runner like Hernandez in the meet as well. But Doyle believes it’s going to take even more dedication in the program and more confident running to get there.
The Apaches have two weeks to prepare for the regional meet. Some success there will punch their ticket to state.
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