This past Wednesday, the Whiteface Antelopes Highschool cross country teams competed in Hamlin, and the day was highlighted by the girls team finishing fourth out of 14 teams overall.
In the girl’s 3.2k race, Lainey Sanders led the way with her time of 13:14.59, finishing eighth overall out of 116 competitors.
Following behind her were teammates Cambry Sanders in 14:14.08 for 25th, Anais Soliz in 14:15.05 for 26th, Emily Blankenship in 14:46.91 for 38th, Rhaelyn Bracey in 15:00.59 for 43rd and Kaylee Gonzalez in 15:31.60 for 56th.
The big focus for the girl’s teams as of late has been closing distance between finishing spots in hopes to place as high as possible as a team, which Head Coach Jason Blankenship thought they executed.
“Overall, it’s a good day for us,” Blankenship said. “We’ve got six girls on varsity, and we look at their gaps, which is time between our runners and we’re shortening our gaps so that’s a good thing.”
He also specifically noted that the biggest closers in spots were Emily Blankenship and Rhaelyn Bracey, who he said are “gaining on our number two and three runners, they get closer to them each week.”
Not only is the girls’ team closing gaps, but noteworthily, they also all finished in the top half of competitors.
On the boy’s side, they were ineligible to qualify for a team finish with only two varsity runners, but Josh Perez had a good day, running a 20:40.58 in the boys 5k to finish 32nd out of 88 competitors.
Coach Blankenship applauded his performance and noted that it was not only an improvement, but also a good time for Perez.
Behind him, his teammate Braxton Davidson finished in 65th with a time of 23:40.75.
Both teams performed well on Wednesday, especially given the fact that they had a quick turnaround after just competing at a meet on the previous Saturday.
“You know it wasn’t bad. It creates two competitive days fairly close together, which is not a bad thing,” Blankenship said. “We look at all our meets right now as practice. That created two good practices in a short duration and that’s a good thing.”
They’re using these early meets to sharpen up for the upcoming district, regional and state meets, which is when the competition really starts for the Antelopes cross country team.
They have one more exhibition meet to improve before they get into the postseason competition, but they’ll also utilize the time until then to practice intentionally.
“In practice we’re really stressing trying to stay in a tight group as best as we can and that’s important when it comes to race day. It’s your number that counts obviously and the closer we can come in together, the better our overall team score will be,” Blankenship said. “Right now, we’re doing some over distance conditioning, trying to get our legs and lungs developed. Each kid has their sticking points in a race that we try to work through whether it’s the first half mile or second mile or the finish. We talk about their races individually and we feel like every one of them are making strides in those areas.”
Coach Blankenship noted that he’s really excited about what he’s seeing in practice and competition because these kids are taking the intentional coaching and applying it to their performances.
They’ll get their next opportunity to do so at the Lubbock Invitational next Saturday at Mae Simmons Park-Lubbock, which will be full of great competition including many Hockley County teams.
The regional course is known to be one held in low regards, so it will be a fun challenge for the Antelopes to conquer.