LHS Girls Dominate Hugoton Meet

Cross Country competes in Hugoton
The Liberal High School cross country teams traveled to Hugoton on Saturday morning to compete in the Hugoton Invitational. 21 schools from Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado took the challenge in the 5K course at the Hugoton Golf Course.
The girls’ junior varsity team set the tone for the day with six girls in the top 15, with freshman Erika Valverde leading the way for the Redskins claiming the gold medal with a time of 24:01. Senior teammate Kayla Gokey was second in 24:32. Junior Ali Lucero 6th in 24:58, sophomore Gisselle Melendez 9th in 25:10, freshman Jakeline Flores 12th and senior Karen Hernandez 13th with times of 25:46 and 25:49.
The boys’ junior varsity continued the big day putting 8 runners in the top 15. Freshman runners Kobe Martinez and Omar Ramirez went 3rd and 5th, Austin Mullens 6th, Aaron Vengas 7th, Cory Nguyen 8th, Merrick Dodge 9th, Joel Berumen 12th, and Emmanuel Dominguez 15th. Both boys and girls JV teams took the junior varsity team titles.
The varsity girls came in looking to repeat as team champions from a year ago and also wanted to send a message to the rest of the state after being left off the first ballot of 5A rankings for the 2016 season. The front running duo of senior Camryn Slatten and freshman Katie Horyna put pressure on all the teams by finishing in 2nd and 3rd with times of 20:05 and 20:10. Senior Yanelly Jurado completed the course in 21:37 in 7th place, followed closely by junior Kelsey Ramsey in 8th with a time of 21:48. Senior Saw Ahmara just missed the top ten crossing the line in 11th in 22:06, while junior Alondra Alvarado’s time of 22:15 was good enough for 16th place. Senior Chloe Alling was the 34th finisher with her time of 24:26. The Lady Skins finished with a total of 30 points to win the team title, followed by Scott City with 65 points, and Hugoton in third with 85 points.
The varsity boys who consisted of seven sophomores, by far the youngest team in the race, were led by Antonio Borunda in 11th place with a time of 17:28. Javier Carillo, Xavier Perez, and Joel Obondo placed 20th, 21st, and 22nd with times of 18:01, 18:02, and 18:06. Fausto Parral was the 29th after completing the course in 18:41. Josh Diazdeleon was 31st after his time of 18:48. When the results were tallied Liberal ended in a third place tie but won the tie breaker by having the fastest sixth runner. Lamar, Colorado won the meet with 75 points, Hugoton was second with 80, and Liberal was third with 93 points.
The Redskins will take the top eight boys and girls to the Oklahoma State Jamboree next weekend to compete in one of the largest and the oldest continuous cross country meet in the United States.