The MPHS cross country team ran at the Hallsville Cross Country Invitational last Thursday and Friday.

Due to UIL mitigation rules only 8 teams can run at a time. To allow for a greater number of teams to compete, races were run in heats throughout the day with the junior varsity teams running on Thursday and the varsity teams running on Friday.

For the JV Boys, Christopher Escobar (Soph.) took 1st in his heat with a time of 19:43 for the 5K course.

For the JV girls Freshman Breanna Gonzalez placed 4th in her heat with a time of 15:50 for the 2 mile course.

Three girls ran the season opener for the varsity team. Senior Buendy Fraire was 16th in a time of 23:25 for 5K. Rounding out the varsity girls were Jennifer Soto (Sr.) in 32nd place and Heslie Castanon (Soph) in 44th place.

The varsity boys team took 2nd in their heat behind Lufkin. Junior Daniel Robles led the Tigers with a 9th place finish with a time of 17:50 for the 5K distance. Next in scoring positions were Geovanni Calderon (Soph.) in 13th, Gilberth Landaverde (Soph) in 16th, and Johnathan Sandate (Jr.) in 17th. Rounding out the varsity team was Gill Landaverde (Sr.) in 21st and Norberto Martinez(Jr.) in 31st place.

The Varsity teams will travel to Longview on Friday, 9/18, to run in the Pine Tree Puddle Jump and Pig Trot.

Write-up by Coach Bryan Trickey