Marble Falls cross country uses first meet for benchmarks

CAPTION: The Marble Falls High School runners have been on campus training as the sun starts to rise. Staff photo by Jennifer Fierro

The Marble Falls High school cross country program traveled to Liberty Hill for the Legacy Hill Friday Night Lights XC Meet Aug. 14.

The Mustangs finished 10th in both the varsity and junior varsity divisions, while the Lady Mustangs were 11th in the varsity division.

The boys were paced by Owen Martin, a four-year letterman, who was ninth overall in 10 minutes and 52.577 seconds. Jahir Garcia was the next Mustang to cross the finish line in 11:43.541 for 37th overall.

“Owen had a solid season opener,” new head coach Cody Taylor said.

As for the Lady Mustangs, Taylor noted the team finish falls in line with other Class 4A programs.

“We’re right in the mix with schools that are similar size and,” he said.

Sapana Khatri, who was 34th overall, and Natalie Nogowski, who was 35th, posted solid finishes.

“Back-to-back top 40,” the coach said. “Nothing real special but solid for the kind of mileage they’ve been putting in this summer.”

The coach pointed out the meet was unique in a couple of aspects. First, it didn’t start until 7 p.m. on a Friday. Usually cross country meets are in the mornings. And second the course ran uphill. That’s why he believes that at other places, Martin is closer to finishing in 10 minutes as opposed to 11 minutes.

And most importantly, the runners and their coaches have a measuring tape for each runner and can set realistic individual goals to help each one succeed.

“I’m excited personally just to have a metric to actually go off of,” Taylor said. “We didn’t have a duel or tri-meet this summer. We were just pretty late to the party on that. So this was just me getting kind of the baseline to go off of with all these kids this summer. Now we can proceed forward and really kind of dial in workouts based on what their fitness level is.”

Taylor was encouraged because typically after the first meet, runners get a feel for a race and realize they can run faster. That’s when times start to drop and runners start to make each other quicker.

“It’s going to take some time, you have to train them,” he said. “It’s a Friday night meet. They’re pretty tired after a long week. It’s hot in August, the meet was uphill. The law of diminishing returns just shows that they’re going to get significantly better early on in the running, which means this fall, they’ll get a lot quicker.”

RESULTS

BOYS

Varsity (109 runners)

9, Owen Martin, 10:52.577; 37, Jahir Garcia, 11:43.541; 47, Logan Hargraves, 12:00.519; 75, Landon Fletcher, 12:39.705; 82, Colton Rutland, 13:16.904; 83, Nicolai Monette, 13:20.852

Junior varsity (133 runners)

46, Santiago Gaytan, 14:26.063; 50, Luke Ochoa, 14:32.863; 53, Adrian Lozano, 14:37.246; 55, Tanner Alford, 14:41.427; 57, Zellam Payson, 14:42.888; 58, Hudson Dehorty, 14:44.701; 59, Jesse Turland, 14:48.988

GIRLS

Varsity (115 runners)

34, Sapana Khatri, 14:13.440; 35, Natalie Nogowski, 14:14.045; 64, Eleny Garcia, 15:04.024; 77, Graci Nelson, 15:51.931; 81, Katerina Moseley, 16:12.983; 83, Magnolia Payson, 16:29.248