.gif)
The Rice Raiders competed in two cross country meets recently, one at McNeil and the other was the Coach Ed meet in Sealy on Friday and Saturday respectively.
The Saturday meet was a memorial meet for Ed Marcinkiewicz who was a big supporter of the Raiders cross country program and jumped all over the opportunity to participate in the meet in his memory.
Not only did they participate in the meet, but they made their mark on it with an outstanding performance from both the boys and girls in their respective races. Two of the girls finished in the top 15 in their two-mile run to show the standard for the Raiders at the meet.
Alexia Rangel and Taylor Eichelberger finished in 4th and 12th place respectively in their race for the Raiders. Rangel finished with a time of 14 minutes and 12 seconds while Eichelberger finished in 15 minutes and six seconds.
These two may have led the pack but their teammates also turned in solid performances Saturday as Melanie Gutierrez, Adela Suarez and Leilany Toriz finished in 50th, 52nd and 56th place respectively.
Much like Rangel and Eichelberger, Gutierrez, Suarez and Toriz all finished with times close to each other. Gutierrez finished the race in 21 minutes and 29 seconds, Suarez finished in 23 minutes and 22 seconds and Toriz finished in 26 minutes and 14 seconds.
This set up the boys to line up in the starting blocks and turn in great numbers as well. Just like the girls the boys all finished relatively close to one another in the placements with Luis Tellez finishing in 26th place and teammates Lorenzo Castillo and Kevin Estrada coming in 29th and 34th place respectively.
Leading the way Tellez would finish the race in 23 minutes and 53 seconds followed by Castillo who finished in 24 minutes and 18 seconds. Two minutes later Estrada would finish in 26 minutes and 20 seconds.
The Raiders also made their way through the Mc-Neil Invitational on Friday, Sept. 22, where the boys had 10 racers finish in the top 250 out of 290 racers.
Jael Valles Serrano was the first raider to cross the finish line completing the 5000M run in 18 minutes and 17 seconds to capture 38th place. Serrano was followed closely by teammates Hayes Dingler and Payton Engelbrecht who finished in 18 minutes and 28 seconds and 18 minutes and 41 seconds respectively earning the runners 46th and 56th place.
Jacob Morales, Jose Briones, Luke Engelbrecht, Andy Beiza, Victor Flores, Ja’Darius Fitzgerald and Joe Luke Morales would cross the finish line a couple of minutes later to complete the race for the Raiders and join their teammates.
The group would all finish the race in 19 or 20 minutes with a couple of seconds varying from each runner. They all finished in 116th, 124th ,172nd , 179th , 197th, 221st and 246th place respectively.
The Raiders will join the Weimar Wildcats in Shiner for their next meet on Saturday, Sept. 30, for a district meet.
