Lady Pirates District 27-3A Champions; Regional in Corpus coming up

The Lytle Lady Pirates Cross Country team won the 27-3A District Championship in Poth a little over a week ago. Lytle cruised by second place Poth by a final tally of 35-44. They now advance to Corpus Christi for Regional on November 9where the top 10 individuals of a non-advancing team or a top 3 as a team will move on to Round Rock for State.
Head Coach Gilbert Ruiz is thrilled with the district championship and is excited to see what Regional holds in store for his Lady Pirates.
“Three weeks ago we got the opportunity to run against some of our district opponents at Poth. After that meet, I felt the girls had a great chance of advancing as we only lost to Karnes City by four points and bested Poth by 13,” Head Coach Gilbert Ruiz stated. “But, a lot of things can happen in three weeks and it did for us. Some were grounded for various reasons and after going through this past week’s workouts, I wasn’t as confident as I had been before. But some were not grounded, and those are the ones the stepped up and helped the girls win by 9, especially Senior Mariana Verdeja. There is probably no one on the girl’s team that I’ve been harder on then her. I have always been brutally honest with her and sometimes those things are not the easiest things to hear. But through it all she never took it the wrong way and never gave up on what I and this sport can teach you, and that is that you are stronger than you believe you are. Yesterday she finally proved that to herself as she not only broke 14-minutes and a personal best, but she shattered it by 23 seconds because she did not want it to be her last meet. Her effort along with the other girls won only our 4th girl’s district title in my 18th year as XC coach, but our 2nd in the last 3 years.”
Congrats to the Lady Pirates and best of luck in Corpus Christi!

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Team standings
1st Lytle 35, 2nd Poth 44, 3rd Karnes City 55, 4th Jourdanton 111, 5th Dilley 123, 6th Natalia 156
Individual top 10
1st Aaliyah Charo-Cotulla 12:08, 2nd Addison Ellis-Poth 12:40, 3rd Marissa Lopez-Lytle 12:52, 4th Eisabel Guerrero-Lytle 13:01, 5th Natalie Williams-Lytle 13:02, 6th Lauren Burson-Karnes City 13:08, 7th Reagan Johnson-Karnes City 13:14, 8th Alania Nethken-Poteet 13:23, 9th Jadyn Jupe-Jourdanton 13:26, 10th Keira McKinney Poth 13:27.
Lady Pirates
3rd Lopez 12:52, 4th Guerrero 13:01, 5th Williams 13:02 13th Mariana Verdeja 13:37, 17th Jazmine Ortega 13:57, 20th Naomy Montes 14:28, 25th Yadhira Mendez 14:57.
By Jerel Beaty
Staff Writer