NOGALES – Douglas High School’s cross country team kicked off its season Wednesday with a quadrangular meet.

Nogales won both the boys and girls meets while the Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs each placed third.

In the boys meet Douglas finished with 79 points well behind Nogales who had 28 and Cienega who had 51. The Bulldogs did beat Sahuarita however who finished with 106 points.

Junior Alek Irey had an impressive season opener finishing first overall with a time of 17-minutes, 37 seconds.

Sophomore Kenny Cardenas followed in 13th place with a time of 20:14. Senior Alex Ortega was 16th with a 20:38.03 and junior Luis Martinez 17th with a 20.38.32.

Marty Hill came in 32nd place with a time of 25:52; Andy Tapia was 35th with a 27:13; Alan Gomez 42nd with a time of 30-minutes and Thomas Fredrickson 44th with a 32:28.

Douglas’ cross country coach David Bond said the Nogales course has a huge hill that comes up in the third mile and it’s that hill that usually gives runners problems.

The coach said Irey stayed with the lead pack of runner for the first two miles and then broke away the last half mile accelerating on the track near the finish.

Bond said Irey’s performance was the highlight of the day with Cardenas, who has only had 15 days of practice and come in second for Douglas Wednesday, being another bright light for the DHS program.

“We have a young team and before today’s race they had no idea the difficulty of running fast for three miles,” the coach said. “It was a wake up call for most. They may start practicing with more intensity.”

In the girls meet Nogales beat Cienega 23-59 while Douglas finished with 59 points and Sahuarita 78.

Nogales’ Konnie Zuniga was the overall winner finishing with a time of 21:22.

Kristi Cormier was the first Douglas runner to finish coming in eighth overall with a time of 23:20. Her sister Kim was second for the Lady Bulldogs and 10th overall finishing with a time of 23:20.

Leilani and Melia Skinner placed 17th and 18th respectively posting times of 26:07 and 26:07.1. Aileen Moreno finished 26th for Douglas finishing with a time of 28:28; Natalie Ramirez was 28th overall with a time of 29:10 and Micah Montez finished 35th turning in a time of 31:22.

Coach Bond said this was a difficult race for his girls and the two Cormier sisters did a good job of trying to stay close to the lead pack of runners.

The coach said the team as a whole still has some work to do if it wants to improve its times.

The DHS runners are back in action Saturday running in the Marana Invitational which starts at 9 A.M. and means a very early departure from Douglas.