PHOENIX – Both the Douglas Bulldog and Lady Bulldog cross country teams placed 10th at their respective state meets Saturday.
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Rio Rico finished with 46 points. Catalina followed with 65 and Cottonwood Mingus placed third with 66 points.
The Bulldogs finished with 274 points, 20 points back of Scottsdale Notre Dame who was ninth. Nineteen teams competed in the state meet.
Flagstaff Sinagua had the individual state champion as junior Brian Shrader finished with a time of 15:15.25.
Alek Irey led the Bulldogs finishing 29th overall with a time of 17:30.90 out of the 139 runners that ran in the 3.1 mile race. Luis Martinez followed in 42nd place with a 17:49.20 Fernando Dominguez placed 50th with a 17:57.75. Kenny Cardenas finished 75th, 18:45.40; Alex Ortega was 78th with an 18:48.50; Robert Coronado was 84th with a 19:06.10 and Alan Gomez 112th with a 20:36.65.
In the girls meet Flagstaff won the state championship with 74 points. Page was second with 82 and Rio Rico, led by individual state champion sophomore Aeoleone Bristow who finished with a time of 19:07.05, was third with 94 points.
The Lady Bulldogs finished 10th with 274 points and finished ahead of Sahuarita who was 13th with 346 points but beat Douglas for third place at regionals.
Kristi Cormier led the Lady Bulldogs finishing 42nd overall with a time of 22:24.10. Melia Skinner followed in 43rd place with a 22:26.70 and Leilani Skinner was 44th with a 22:29.40. Kim Cormier was 54th with a time of 22:57.65; Aileen Moreno was 91st with a time of 24:47.85. Isabel Moreno placed 112th and Micah Montez 114th posting times of 26:04.55 and 26:10.25 respectively.
Douglas’ cross country coach David Bond said 129 girls ran in the girls’ race.
Coach Bond said after the race his team did basically what he expected them to do and that was improve their times towards the end of the season.
“The competition is just ferocious now,” he said. “The top three boys teams averaged in the 16-minute range … and for the girls they’re in the 19’s and 20’s. … Our kids are a couple of minutes behind that.”
Coach Bond said state just finished and already those teams that did well at state will start running 40-50 miles this week preparing for next year.
“In order to compete we have to do that,” the coach said. “It’s really hard to ask a kid to give that intense training. … I realize some of them are doing other sports … It’s fiercely competitive.”
Coach Bond said he was not surprised Rio Rico and Catalina did as well as they did at state but that comes from the year round running.
“Both those schools are just flat out good,” he said. “They work hard and they’re well coached.”
Bond said his girls’ team did not run as well as it should have at regionals and he was happy to see them respond with a better effort at state.
“We’re fortunate we have a lot of kids coming back,” the coach said. “We’re losing two senior boys and one senior girl.”
The coach said for the boys Irey and Martinez ran first and second for the Bulldogs all year and newcomers Dominguez, Ortega, Coronado and Kenny Cardenas all showed improvement as did Gomez.
For the girls the coach said the two Cormier sisters and Skinner sisters were consistent all year and Montes, Isabel and Aileen Moreno and Natalie Ramirez had good seasons.
Looking back on the season Coach Bond says his team has what he calls a “solid season” and they finished in the middle of all the teams at state.
“We had good kids, they had good attendance and they did what they were supposed to do,” he said. “If you not out there the first day of practice its hard to catch up. … They did improve.”
The DHS cross country teams will be honored at their post season awards banquet which will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Douglas Aquatic Center.
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