Lion harriers finish race seconds out of first place

The Lockhart Boys Cross Country team traveled to Wimberley this past weekend to compete in the Wimberley Invitational. Lockhart ran the race without their top 6 boys competing. The runners were held out of last Saturday”s race in order to practice for the Texas A&M Invitational.
Senior Sean Smith led the way for Lockhart as he placed sixth out of 107 runners in th

e Boys Varsity race. Smith covered the 5,000-meter (3.1 mile) course in a fine time of 16:56. Freshman David Dihn finished 20 seconds behind Smith in 11th place with a time of 17:16. Next a trio of Lion harriers crossed the line in 15th, 16th and 17th places. Junior Scotty Castanon ran a personal best to capture 15th in 17:25. Senior Scott Woody ran a fine race to place 16th in 17:31, while sophomore Marcos Gonzales was Lockhart”s fifth man placing 17th in a personal best of 17:33.
Lockhart”s top five runners tied Boerne with 70 points for the overall team championship out of 10 high schools competing. However, ties for first are broken by the sixth man for each school. In this case the sixth runner for Boerne beat the sixth runner from Lockhart by one position giving Boerne the team title. New Braunfels placed third with 86 points, Bastrop was fourth with 92 points, and host Wimberley placed fifth with 202 points.
Other Lockhart runners who competed on Saturday included Xavier Thomas, running a personal best 17:48 and placing sixth on JV. Ryan Gonzales ran 17:58 and placed 30th on Varsity. Cameron Peters ran a personal best 17:58 placing 10th in the JV race. Christyan Gutierrez placed 15th in JV with a time of 18:14. Alfredo Maderal, who had some tremendous practices recently, was 42nd in the Varsity race with a time of 18:17. Other finishers in the JV race included AJ Maderal- 33rd, Jonathon Farias – 54th, Richard Ascerno – 67th, and Jordan Delgado – 82nd.
The top-ranked Lion harriers will travel to the A&M Invitational on Saturday morning, leaving the LHS parking lot at 5:30 a.m. The Varsity Boys” race begins at 9 a.m., and will mark the first time this season the Lions run a 5K course.
(Courtesy of Scott Hippensteel)