Estefany Cano
Senior Noel Huato cruised to a first-place finish at Saturday's Kern County Championships.
The Del Oro boys cross country team carried a lot of expectations coming into Saturday’s Kern County Championships at Hart Memorial Park.
Those expectations were quickly exceeded when the Suns captured three of the top four spots in the boys varsity three-mile race.
Senior Noel Huato won the race with a time of 14 minutes, 32.41 seconds.
“I think I did pretty good,” he said. “But I think I could’ve done better.”
Senior Alex Garcia finished second with a new personal record of 15:06.58.
“I’m happy, I wanted to break 15 (minutes) this race but I was off by a few seconds,” he said. “But you know, I can’t be mad. We did good. We did good as a team.”
Sophomore Jesus Torres placed fourth with a time of 15 minutes, 39.36 seconds.
As a team, Del Oro placed first with a score of 24 points and easily outpaced the second-place team, McFarland. McFarland finished with 72 points, followed by Ridgeview (116 points), Highland (135) and Arvin (140) to round out the top five.
Finishing in eighth place was sophomore Rodrigo Guerra, who clocked in at 16:00.62, while junior Joel Gutierrez-Ventura followed in ninth place with a time of 16:02.67.
For the girls team, senior Sonia Alba finished in 30th place with a time of 21:10.88. Junior Valerie Vargas finished 64th with a time of 24:29.86.
Despite the boys team’s accomplishments this season, there are signs it is prepared for changes next year when it loses its top two runners, Huato and Garcia, to graduation.
In the two-mile junior varsity race, sophomores Bentley Rodriguez and Steven Serna took the top two spots as the Suns scored 27 points to beat Highland (47), Golden Valley (77), McFarland (92) and East (117). Rodriguez finished first with a time of 10:51.88 while Serna followed in second place with a time of 11:14.07.
Suns Head Coach Hulises Gonzales said the team’s goals would change, but the mentality and drive will always stay the same.
“Goals are what change with seasons because of different runners,” he said. “New runners can’t predict the future on who will be on the team, but I can predict that we’re going to continue to work hard.
“But just remember that, in order to continue moving forward, we’ve got to focus on what we can control and the people we have on our team.”
The Suns cross country teams will compete on Thursday at the South Yosemite Horizon League Championships at Hart Park. The boys seek to capture their third league title in four years.