Cross country season ended at regional

Yuma High School’s cross country season came to an end last week at the Class 2A Region 1 Meet.

The Outlaws competed well but did not qualify anyone for the state meet that will be held Saturday in Colorado Springs.

“Overall, I think we had an amazing season,” coach Katherine Coughlin said. “Jim Powell and I have never coached cross country, and for the first season of mentoring and coaching these kids I think we and the team all worked great together. A couple runners were about 10 places behind making it to state at regionals.”

Yuma’s boys gave it a run but finished seventh out of 12 schools with a team score with 122 points. Loveland Classical won the team title with 31 points, while Forge Christian was second, Lyons third and Heritage Christian fourth.

Alan Flores came closest to qualifying individually, placing 26th with a time of 19 minutes, 38.6 seconds. Hugo Olivas was right behind in 28th in 19:42.6, Josiah Perez 32nd in 20:00.08, Liam McClaran 38th in 20:36, and Esteban Gonzalez 56th in 22:11. Adan Cortes, Maddox King and Anderson Habana also ran at regional.

The girls did not have enough runners for a team score. Achtonn Neill-Davison was 30th in 25:01.2, while Kenya Arvizo was 40th in 26:26.6, and Myka McDonald 43rd in 27:34.9.

Heritage Christian, Loveland Classical, Nederland and Lyons were the top teams in the girls division.

“I really believe next year we will have even more potential and hopefully new, motivated runners to add to the team to get us there,” Coughlin said.