The Calhoun cross country teams continued to kick off Justin Lindsey’s first season as head coach in impressive fashion, winning both the boys and girls team competitions when the Jackets hosted hometown rivals Gordon Central and Sonoraville at New Echota on Thursday afternoon.
The Calhoun boys scored a scorching 19 points as a team with six of the top-10 finishers, while the girls secured the victory with 24 team points with seven runners placing in the top10.
The Jackets were lead by Jonathan Santana who posted a blistering first-place time of 18:55, followed by Esvin Garcia who posted a third-place finish of 19:16. Jason Sosa finished with a fourthplace time of 20:07, and Julio Lopez and Nestor Hernandez tied with times of 20:17 to place five Calhoun runners in the top six.
The top performers for the Calhoun girls included Ashley Hartness’ first place time of 23: 39, Mari Morales’s second-place time of 24:59 and Nancy Gonzalez’s sixth-place time of 26:30.
Overall, Lindsey said he was impressed with his team’s results.
“We are just really proud and excited about their effort,” Lindsey said. “Each meet we are just trying to get better and better until region. These meets are just stepping stones until region and state.”
The Gordon Central girls totaled 44 points on the afternoon highlighted by Lizbeth Alvarez’s third-place time of 25:33 and Taylor Evans’ fifthplace time of 26:21.
The Warriors received 71 points from the boys team. Bryce Bussert recorded a seventh-place finish with a time of 20:31. Nelson Rodriguez crossed the finish line close behind with an eighth-place time of 20:33.
Gordon Central coach Shannon Rainwater said she was pleased with her runners’ determination following a tough stretch of meets.
“This was our third meet in six days, so I think a lot of our kids were really tired,” Rainwater said. “But overall, I think we did really well because this course is one of the hardest courses we will run all year.”
The Sonoraville boys tallied a team score of 52 points. Drake Johnson anchored the team with his second-place time of 19:14 and John Graves added a ninth-place time 20:51.
The Phoenix girls posted a total score of 89. Maggie Hamilton contributed a fourth-best overall time of 25:45.
Sonoraville head coach Butch Burch said he determined his team still had a few kinks to work out before the next meet.
“We have some work to do,” Burch said. “We will take what we saw today and go back and practice hard on those things. I think we are better than we showed today, so we will work on it.”
Sonoraville ran again on Saturday, Sept. 3 at Berry College. Calhoun and Gordon Central’s next meets are Thursday, Sept. 8, when the Jackets will host Pepperell and Coosa at New Echota and the Warriors race at Manning Mill Park in Adairsville.