Royal Cross Country: Girls 2nd, Boys 3rd at top-heavy Connell Invitational

ROYAL CITY — Before the Royal High cross country teams kicked off the season, they made it plain their goal is to improve on last year’s finish at state – 7th for the boys, 9th for the girls.

Don’t be surprised if they do it. No matter where they’ve run this year, the Royal boys and the girls have been among the top finishers every time. It’s as if they were born to run.

And it seems they compete against each other as much as against other schools. Last weekend the girls came out on top, taking second at the Connell Invitational, while the boys finished third.

After an exceptional showing two weekends ago at the Seaside 3-Course Challenge races in Oregon, the boys and girls squads looked to improve on those finishes at the Connell Invitational, which presented a challenge of several crack Washington teams.

“For us, it is about day to day and week to week improvements in our fitness, speed and, hopefully, mental approach to racing,” coach Ben Orth said.

Joining the Knights at the Connell Invitational were 23 other teams, including A to 4A schools and everything in between. The 5-kilometer course (3.1 miles) involved a combination of grass, dirt, and gravel surfaces for runners to navigate.

The girls had a serious challenge in front of them and did exceptionally well by finishing in 2nd place with 89 points behind eventual champion Riverside (56 points).

En route to their runner-up team finish the Lady Knights were able to distance themselves from several state-ranked teams. Those included 10th-ranked Chelan (3rd overall) and 9th-ranked Pullman (4th overall).

“It took a total team effort. I’m really proud of how hard our girls ran in the face of some solid teams,” Orth said.

Leading the way for the Knights and finishing in 8th place overall was sophomore Kay Lester with a time of 21:25.

“Each week she keeps getting stronger and stronger,” assistant coach Amanda Eilers said.

Freshman Elizabeth Guadarrama (16th, 22:09) and junior Gracelynn Miller (20th, 22:27) had solid performances for the Knights, and junior Caitlin Diaz (28th 23:22) and senior Meghan Mianecki (31st, 23:38) finished out the scoring at Connell.

“Effort. We’ve been stressing this quality all season in the workouts,” Orth said. “We’ve still got a long way to go, but I was really proud of their overall effort.”

Freshman Abigail Delay (38th, 24:25) and senior Anahi Gomez (41st, 24:38) rounded out the varsity squad.

In the boys competition the front runners of the large field of participants took off quickly. The leaders cruised the opening mile in about 4 minutes and 50 seconds, with Royal’s top runner, Victor Garcia, clocking a 5:04.

“Each race course is unique and places different demands on the runners,” Orth said. “In this case, the opening mile was slightly downhill and, to stay with the leaders, our top guys had to be aggressive early on.”

The final mile featured a long steady climb before a 300-meter sprint finish. Garcia and standout freshman Rodolfo Flores once again led the tough Knight contingent by placing in the top 15 to earn ribbons. Following Garcia (13th overall, 17:54) and Flores (15th, 17:59) was sophomore Silver Beltran (20th, 18:12).

“Our strength in this year’s team is our strong pack runners,” Orth said. “Silver really did a fine job to be so close to our top runners.”

Rounding out the scorers for the Knight boys were sophomore Eduardo Rodriguez (32nd, 18:40) and freshman Victor Santillan (33rd, 18:41).

“I really like these guys” Orth said. “They are both wrestlers, and perhaps their strongest attributes are their mental toughness and their ability to grind out a race. Wrestling is excellent at building those intangibles.”

Orth certainly appreciates wrestlers, having been one himself. He attained All-America recognition while wrestling at Central Washington University.

With a combined team score of 111 points, the boys placed 3rd

out of the 24 schools. They finished behind some strong teams. Runner-up Cascade Leavenworth (76 points) is currently ranked third in 1A, and champion Pullman (59 points) is ranked sixth in 2A.

The Knight runners begin South Central A Conference competition this week. Thursday they’ll run at Highland and face the Scotties, Goldendale and College Place.

The Royal boys have won the last four league titles and the girls have won two in a row. On Saturday the Knights will travel to the Wenatchee Invitational.