For the past month and a half, the Lowry High School cross country team has traveled on both sides of northern Nevada, with a trip to Boise, Idaho, thrown in as well.
The Buckaroos had a rare opportunity to stay home last week, hosting the Lowry Invitational, this past Friday afternoon at Winnemucca Municipal Golf Course.
The day began as elementary, middle school and junior high school students had a chance to show their speed on a 1-mile course. Fernley and Spring Creek brought some younger runners as well.
On the high school level, a handful of teams from the Division I-A North made the trip as well as a number of smaller schools.
Spring Creek swept the team titles in both the JV and varsity races. The Spartan boys and girls won the varsity races for the third consecutive season.
The Spartan boys won with 51 points, while Elko was a close second at 54. Churchill County was third with 96 points and Sierra Lutheran (106) and Silver Stage (108) rounded out the top five. Dayton was sixth at 116 and Lowry (162) was seventh.
The Spring Creek girls won with 25 points. Elko was second at 51, and Sierra Lutheran (72) and Fernley (91) were third and fourth, respectively. Churchill County was fifth at 121, and the Lady Bucks were sixth at 149.
“I thought the kids ran pretty well,” said LHS head coach Kathy Norcutt. “We have been doing a lot of hard training the last couple of weeks.”
Omar Aranjo led the Buckaroo boys with a 24th-place finish in a time of 18 minutes, 56 seconds. It was the first time he broke 19 minutes this year. Jonathan Madrid was one of three Lowry runners to clock in under 20 minutes, at 19:29 to finish 33rd. Devin Dowd timed in at 19:46 and Christopher Kearns stooped the clock at 19:49. Joe Gildone was 47th with a time of 21:02 and Liam Sparks was 53rd at 22:29.
The Lady Bucks were paced by Charice Brown, who finished 22nd with a time of 24:03. Brienna Everhart was 30th, with a time of 26:01, and fellow senior Alexandra Ziemer was 33rd with a time of 27:52. Odessa Pearrow was 34th at 29:24, and Camryn Maher placed 35th at 32:00.
At the junior varsity level, Rebecca Kuskie won for the second week in a row, as the freshman had a time of 22:10. She pulled away in the second half of the race to win by nearly 40 seconds.
“She comes on in the second half of the race,” Norcutt. “She is a smart runner. She lets her competitors do all the work at the start and she is stronger at the end.”
Amelia Weber also ran in the JV race and was 28th in a time of 31.22.
Spring Creek won the team title with 23 points. Fernley was second at 38, and Elko (87) was third. Lowry did not have enough runners for a team score.
The Spring Creek JV boys came way with a victory on Friday, scoring 20 points. Elko was second at 59, and Churchill County (89) was third. West Wendover (98) was the only other school to have a team score.
The Lowry JV boys had four runners compete, with Will Kracaw leading the way with a 14th-place finish in a time of 19:59.
“That is still a good finish for him,” Norcutt said. “It was a tough, quick field he was in.”
Gavin Ziemer was 25th at 21:09, Jacob Means placed 41st with a time of 22:58 and Braden Thomas (27:15) was 57th.
Lowry travels to Elko on Thursday for the Elko Invitational at 3 p.m. for the last regular season meet of the season.
The Northeast JV Championships will take place, Thursday, Oct. 22, in Spring Creek.
The Division I-A North Regional Championship is set for Saturday, Oct. 31, at Rancho San Rafael Park in Reno. The Division I-A girls run at 9:40 a.m., with the boys starting at 12:15 p.m.
The top three teams qualify for the state championships, and the top six runners on non-qualifying teams advance to state as well. The state championships will be at Rancho San Rafael on Saturday, Nov. 7.
