Royal boys, girls notch two wins each
ROYAL CITY — The Royal High School boys and girls cross country teams raced to a pair of victories against Highland and Goldendale last Thursday to post early records of 2-0 in SCAC competition.
The races were held at the Apple Ridge course in Cowiche which will be the site of the District Championships held at the end of October.
The boy’s team has its sights set on its 5th consecutive League Title. The Knights were able to dispatch Highland by a score of 16 to 45 (low score wins) and defeated Goldendale 20 to 43. “I’m always proud of our guys” coach Ben Orth said. “However, truth be told, it wasn’t our greatest race of the year. Silver Beltran had an exceptional race, but many of our top runners struggled to hold their paces.”
Part of the problem, Orth said, was his coaching. He had pushed the runners pretty hard the week before in practice, which resulted in heavy legs on race day. The boys were also missing one of their top runners, Salvador Horta, who is still recovering from an injury.
The Royal girls were also able to outdistance their competition and won handily by margins of 15-48 over Highland and 15-50 against Goldendale.
Kay Lester led a pack of Royal runners as the girls team captured seven of the top eight finishes. The Knights have posted back to back league titles (2013 and 2014). However will be tested in a couple of weeks when they host Zillah which is cu ranked No. 3 in the 1A state rankings.
“I thought our team ran very well.” Orth said. “Many of the girls, including Caitlin Diaz and Meghan Mianecki turned in nice performances.”
On Saturday the royal teams traveled to the Wenatchee Invitational. Although the weather forecast predicted high winds, the day actually turned out to be fantastic with clear skies and barely a trace of wind.
Both teams finished toward the middle of the field with the girls finishing 6th and the boys 8th out of the 14 teams in competition.
“This was a flat racecourse and real fast, coach Lyndsy Roberts said. “Although it was not a huge invitational, as far as number of schools, there was definitely great competition to be had.”
Royal was one of three 1A schools in competition. Most of the other schools were 3A and 4A.
Central Valley of Spokane, won the boys meet with 45 team points, and Lake Stevens came in second (74 points). Hanford walked away with the girl’s title (43 points), and again Lake Stevens settled for second (68 points).
“I think it is necessary for our kids to run against elite competition,” Orth said. “They need to be pressed as much as possible to reach their potential.”
“Again, a lot of our kids raced real hard,” Orth added. “I was exceptionally pleased with the performances of Victor Garcia (19th place, 16:34) and Elizabeth Guaddarrama (19th, 20:25), both of whom set lifetime personal records for 3.0 miles.
The Knight runners will travel to Granger Thursday to continue SCAC league competition against host Granger, LaSalle, and Naches Valley.