The season opener for the Rye cross country team was a valuable one. While only one rookie, freshman Cassy Berndt, ran, everyone on the team learned something. The Alamosa meet is unique in our schedule because it features big, strong teams from New Mexico. Los Alamos with 60 runners won both divisions but in the girls race Pojaque gave them a scare with the scores being 51 to 54. The boys race wasnt nearly as close with Los Alamos easily beating St. Michaels 29 to 59. Center, a strong team that is coming to the Thunderbolt Invitational at Hollydot West September 23, took third in the boys race with 140. Rye only had four runners in each division so couldnt score but its unlikely that we would have been in the upper half of the teams.
Individually we did pretty well. Among our eight runners we earned four medals. There were about 120 boys and a similar number of girls running the 3 mile course that was revised this year because of a housing development near the course. Pueblo West freshman Anna Marshall led almost the entire race only to be nipped at the finish line by Alamosas own Lindsey Sowards, 18:57 to 18:58. Hillary Crawford and Samantha Davenport ran together almost the whole race, moving up steadily. Hillary powered away at the end to nip a Los Alamos girl to get 16th in 21:17. Samantha finished 19th in 21:38. Cassy Berndt made her high school debut, finishing 57th in 23:48. Rachel Yoder was 72nd in 24:34. Her time adjusted for 5,000 meters, the usual racing distance, was almost 5 minutes faster than last year.
In the boys division Logan Gogarty and Brandon Hruby ran together until Brandon began to fade near the end. Logan was 11th in 17:14 and Brandon 24th in 18:00. Aaron Berndt apparently lost his scoring tag but would have been 50th in 18:56. Joe Valdez was the only Rye runner to get a personal best time, finishing 75th in 20:27. Joes adjusted time was over a minute faster than last year.
Our next meet will be the East Tribute run at Elmwood Golf Course in Pueblo on 9/9 at 9:00 AM. We should be a little better then, and may have enough to score in the boys race.