Lion harriers dominate in Shiner

The Lockhart Boys Cross Country team traveled to the nationally well-known town of Shiner to run in Shiner Invitational.

The meet is one of best small cross country meets held in Texas. The races are run on time and efficiently managed.

Lockhart won the seven-team race with 16 points, one point shy of perfect, marking their second consecutive invitational win of the seaso

n. The Lions have now competed in five invitational meets this fall, and have a cumulative record of 86 wins and 11 losses on the season.

Lockhart ran their best race of the season on Saturday as the top five runners completed the race all within one minute and 16 seconds. That gap has closed dramatically in the past five weeks.

For the fifth consecutive week, senior Nate Moore and junior Robert Uhr ran together during last Saturday’s race, placing first and second overall with a time of 14:48 for the nearly-three-mile (4,610-meter) course.

Although the course was a bit short, it certainly wasn’t easy,” Coach Scott Hippensteel said. “The course had a particularly difficult hill in the last the last 400 meters of the race.”

Senior Eli Spring continues and improve and inches ever closer to Moore and Uhr. Spring ran just 35 seconds off the winning time, placing third overall in 15:23.

Junior Nicholas Avey finished fourth in 15:49. Rounding out the top five and the team scoring was junior Xavier Espinosa who placed seventh in 16:09.

Junior JD Amaya finished only five seconds behind Espinosa, earning eighth place overall. Junior Joseph Hefner was the number seven man for the Lions, closing out the race in 16th place in 17:01.

In the team standings Lockhart came out on top as they captured the school’s 104th invitational championship in school history. Port Lavaca Calhoun scored 46 to place second, while Bellville finished as third-best team, scoring 64 points.

The Lockhart JV won the seven team-race with a score of 27 points. Calhoun was second with 60 points, and Yoakum placed third with 73 points.

Sophomore Eric Moreno captured his first victory of the season as he strolled to victory in 12:32. The JV course was 2.3 miles in length.

Sophomore Jordan Johnson played his first varsity football game on Friday night and got up early Saturday morning to place second overall in 13:00.

“That type of effort and dedication is very rare and extremely motivational to all the kids running,” Hippensteel said. “We were all very proud of Jordan.

Freshman Sergio Moreno placed fifth in 13:12. Moreno was followed by Mario Maciel in eighth place with a time of 13:26, Brandon Rodriquez in 13th (13:48), Billy Hernandez in 22nd (14:16), Jose Alonzo in 25th (14:19), Taylor Stephens in 29th (14:34), Sabass Amaya in 31st (14:44), Kobe Hurt in 32nd (14:48), Dillon Adams in 40th (15:18), Alex Baltierra in 50th (16:05), Ryan Arms in 52nd (16:11), Noah Zapata in 55th (16:34), Tyler Spillman in 56th (16:39) and Robin Roundthwaite in 57th (16:40).

The Lions will travel to Round-Top this Saturday, Oct. 8.

Lockhart is having another great season of Cross Country and appreciates all the support they can get from fans and friends.

(Courtesy of Scott Hippensteel)