Royal girls 12th, boys 13th at state cross country
Ted Escobar/The Sun Tribune - From left, Royal’s Silver Beltran, Arturo Villa, Jose Morales, Victor Santillan, Rudy Flores, Victor Garcia and Alfredo Orozco celebrate the end of another successful cross country season at the state meet in Pasco last Saturday. It was Royals 12th straight year at state.
Rodney Harwood/Columbia Basin Herald - Sophomore Rudy Flores finishes first for Royal in 13th place at the state cross country meet.
PASCO — The early races at the Washington cross country state championships were settled in a dense fog Saturday morning at the Sun Willow Golf Course in Pasco.
By the time the Class 1A boys, including Royal High School, stepped to the starting line, the sun had broken through, and it was a perfect cool, crisp day to run.
Deer Park (83) and Medical Lake (95) slugged it out for the top team scores, and the young Royal Knights took their place among the state’s elite runners.
Rodolfo Flores (17:05.90) and Victor Santillan (17:50.80) led Royal to a 13th-place team finish. The Knights scored 297 as a team. Flores and Santillan were 31st and 69th, respectively, in the 155-runner field.
“The first mile was about going with the flow. I started to pick it up by the mile,” Flores said. “This was a pretty fast field, but I felt pretty good.”
Santillan added: “When you get boxed, you tend to get tired faster trying to work your way out,” he said. “It was hard to get some room, but I definitely feel like a ran well today.”
Cross country is a team score comprised of individual efforts. Even though there’s no one to pass the ball to or any gang tackling, everybody matters.
Whether you finish first or 51st, they all know the pain of burning lungs and spent legs. As the Royals gathered in the collection pen behind the scenes after turning in their bib numbers to meet officials, they waited for each one of their guys.
A photographer asked for a team shot, but they waited. “Not everybody’s here,” said Victor Garcia, who’s one of just two seniors. “Hey, over here.”
As they joined arm in arm, it became clear this wasn’t a team — it was a brotherhood. Guys willing to make the sacrifice in a game that is distance running.
They were well outside the discussion in the team standings, but they wore the black and gold with pride and, if they are the only example of Royal people get to know, they represented their community well.
Silver Beltran (17:57.50) finished 78th. Arturo Villa (18:30.90) was 116th in the final race of his high school career. Alfredo Orozco (18:38.10), Victor Garcia (18:53.10), the other senior, and Jose Morales (19:00.20), placed 122, 134, 138, respectively.
The Royal girls, who ran on Friday, finished 12th in the 1A girls team standings. They didn’t run in the lead pack individually, but they did run well as a group in the third tier.
Senior Gracelynne Miller posted a time of 21:09.00 to finish 60th in the 160-runner field to lead the Knights. Kay Lester (21:28.20) was 16 places back, finishing 76th. In fact, Royal had all five of its scoring runners in the top 100.
Abigail Delay (21:29.80), Elizabeth Guardarrama (21:45.10) and Anna Villafana (21:56.20) finished 81, 96 and 100, respectively. Caitlin Diaz (22:53.30) ran the final race of her high school career and Amanda Justo-Victoriano (23:01.00) round out the seven Royal girls that took on the challenges of the rolling hills at Sun Willow Golf Course, competing with the state’s elite.