Wildcats and Lady Cats Cross Country Coach Ross Hicks used a tri-meet at Royse City against the Bulldogs and Mount Pleasant Saturday (August 17) to seed his teams and to determine varsity competitors for now. Coach Hicks said it was interesting to open the season against the expected top two district competitors. As it turned out, Coach Hicks said he was so busy making sure his athletes finished the chaotic race that he didn’t have time to keep track of the other two teams’ runners. Due to concerns with the ground at the Royse City cross country course, the coaches decided to move the 5K run to the Royse City High School track. Each Wildcat and Lady Cat had to complete 12 laps. Coach Hicks said he used the situation to teach the lesson of handling adversity when it arises. He said his athletes responded well. Coach Hicks said his top six Lady Cats finishers were senior Sydney Washburn, freshman Lainie Hurst, sophomore Jessica Yanez, freshman Emily Soto, senior Ashley Noe and Maurie Flecker. Wildcats order of finish was senior Christian Palomino first on the team and second in the race, second on the team sophomore Jose Mejia who was fourth in the race, third on the team Camden Fuller, fourth Alan Hernandez, fifth senior Kevin Yanez, sixth senior Ricardo Torres, seventh senior Kyle Chanel and eighth Evan Patrick. Coach Hicks said he entered 23 Wildcats in the race. He said seedings are not set in stone and he said others could rise to the top as the season goes on. The Wildcats and Lady Cats will compete in a Commerce meet, The Tiger Invitational, this Saturday. Coach Hicks said the meet will be much larger this year as seven other Class 5A schools will compete. District foes Mount Pleasant and Greenville are expected to attend. Coach Hicks said he would also be able to enter some middle school runners in the race.
