McAuley Catholic's boys' and girls' cross country teams finished first at the second Warrior Twilight meet Saturday at McAuley’s cross country venue at St. Mary’s Elementary School along Central City Road.
In a shorter 3,200-meter course, the boys topped the field with a team-low 29 points. Fair Grove was second with 54, El Dorado Springs came in third with 55, East Newton was fourth with 98, and Nevada finished with 119 points.
The meet included 57 boys from 14 teams, but only five schools fielded enough runners for team scores.
McAuley finished with three runners in the top five and all of its scored runners finished in the top 10. Gavin Anderson paced the Warriors and finished second with a time of 10:46.16. Will Mollnow (11:12.63) was fourth and Thomas Perrin (11:18.36) was fifth.
Azaareal Villanueva logged an eighth-place finish with a time of 11:30.34 and teammate Aedan Larson was 10th (11:34.29).
Wyatt Klaiber, El Dorado Springs, won the boys' race with a time of 9:35.35.
“Nobody is really going to hang their hat on winning or not winning a two-mile race in August,” McAuley head coach Andy Youngworth said. “But still, I think it shows that we are competitive. I was really pleased with our boys team in general.”
Youngworth said he was especially pleased with his top eight, and particularly with his fourth- and fifth-place runners, Mollnow and Perrin.
“They were only 25 seconds apart. If you can be that close together in a bigger race, you can really do some special things,” Youngworth said.
Other top 20 finishers for McAuley included Rowen Veer, who was 12th (11:37.10); Juan Castenada at 16th (12:19.45); and Ryker Veer (12:22.51) who came in 19th.
Girls' race
On the girls' side, McAuley won a close competition with Nevada. The Warriors finished first with 34 points. Nevada was second with 35 points and El Dorado Sprigs was third with 51 points.
The Warrior girls finished with four runners in the top 10, including freshman Tess Horinek, who finished second in her first-ever high school race with a time of 13:02.40.
Katrina Cantwell, of Fair Grove, won the girls' race after completing the course in 12:47.16. Horinek led for most of the race but was overtaken by Cantwell with about 400 meters left.
“I wasn’t really surprised, because she has run really well in middle school, but trying to translate that into a high school meet is a little more difficult,” Youngworth said. “The girl that won it finished fifth last year at the state meet in Class 3. That really tells me a lot about where Tess is at in relationship to some pretty good runners.”
Riley Sears (14:15.10) was eighth; Olivia Parrigon (14:22.41) was ninth; and Elizabeth Bohachick (14:25.96) was 10th. Fatima Hernandez rounded out the Warriors' scored runners. She as 28th with a time of 17:54.40.
Other top local finishers included Liberal’s Kasyn Meadows, who finished third (13:32.95); New Height’s Valerie Jackson, who was seventh (14:13.64); and East Newton runner Louramae Linton (14:37.70), Adelynn Packwood (14:40.36) and Brooklyn Jacobs (15:09.85), who were 12th, 13th and 14th respectively.
The meet nearly tripled in size from last year, the inaugural year that saw five teams. This year’s field featured runners from 14 schools.
The Warriors return to action Saturday when they travel to Bolivar for the SWCCCA meet, which features about 2,000 kids from elementary to high school age.
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