Jerel Beaty
Staff Writer
If success is addicting, Lytle Head Cross Country coach Gilbert Ruiz and his runners must be straight-up addicts. The Pirate team begins the 2024 season looking for its 7th consecutive trip to State while the Lady Pirates are shooting for their fourth trip in a row.
If that does not signify success, then I am not sure what does anymore.
A new year brings with it new challenges. Ruiz and his new band of runners knows the time is now to lay the groundwork if they wise to end up where they feel they rightfully belong, which is in Round Rock at Old Settlers Park on November 2.
“I’m excited about the season even though our numbers have dwindled a bit,” Ruiz stated. “We still return four girls (Frances Scotello 11th, Klayre Cook 11th, Svetlana Lopez 11th, Addison Wagner 10th) from last year’s 3rd place team and 5 boys (Johnny Rey Alvarez 12th, Yandel Esquivez 12th, Bryan Montes-Rodriguez 11th, Lucas Salazar 11th, Diego Reyna 11th) from last year’s Runner-up team.”
Veterans are in place to help Ruiz in guiding the young ones along, which will be important as Lytle officially starts its season at Pieper Ranch Middle School August 10. The relay-style meet is a 6-mile run with four legs running 1.5 miles each.
“We have a full schedule and probably our toughest schedule since I have been here, but these kids have put in the work and are ready for the challenge.”
On August 24, Lytle competed at Poth in a Mile Time Trial. Ruiz was pleased with what he saw that day, and even got a glimpse of the future in one of his competitors.
“The runners did very well in Poth, with incoming 8th grader Jacob Cantu setting a new Lytle Junior High 1600m record after just competing at the AAU Junior Olympics in North Carolina last week.”
Ruiz will have his teams performing at an elevated level when it matters most, and he is looking forward to 2024.
“We are excited and hope that you all can come make a meet if possible.”
Schedule
August 10th Pieper Relay, 17th Floresville, 24th San Antonio Steele, 31st Medina Valley September 7th Bandera, 14th Corpus Christi, 20th McNeil, 28th Luling October 2nd TBD, 9th District @ Dilley, 22nd Regionals at Corpus Christi November 2nd State.
Poth Mile Time Trial
Johnny Rey Alvarez 4:43.15, Lucas Salazar 4:44.18, Diego Reyna 4:44.90, Jacob Cantu 4:47.75, Yandel Esquivez 4:48.72, Bryan Montes-Rodriguez 4:51.93, Adrian Reyna 5:05.21, Sebastian Garcia 5:08.50, Michael Scotello 5:15.87, Frances Scotello 5:42.21, Frankie Cantu 5:47.24, Svetlana Lopez 5:50.09, Weston Cook 5:59.97, Klayre Cook 6:03.18, Elyse Cortinas 6:11.34, Emiliano Cardenas 6:16.21, Kaycee Galindo 6:17.06, Addison Wagner 6:21.78, Chase Burley 6:24.94, Anthony Scotello 6:30.59, Annalise Quintanilla 6:33.50, Sophia Herrera 6:35.15, Andrea Gomez 7:04.31.