For the second Saturday in a row, the Marietta Lady Indians’ Junior High Cross Country team has emerged victorious from their meet – this time the Lake Country Conference Meet, held September 9 at Madill.
Conference teams Madill, Byng, Dickson, Kingston, Lone Grove, Plainview, and Sulphur all took a run at the JH Lady Indians, but without success. Marietta took first place in the meet with a team score of 44, 14 points head of second-place Sulphur and 25 points ahead of third-place Plainview.
Cielo Salas was the highest finisher for her team, running in second place, less than 10 seconds off the winning pace. Salas’s time was 10:06.36.
Liliana Fernandez finished sixth for the Lady Indians in 10:32.13, Delilah Goff in seventh in 10:40.30, Amari Barrios in 11th in 10:46.60, and Capri Finch in 19th place in 11:04.18.
Also running for Marietta Junior High were Allie Bruce, Mia Bojorquez, Vaire Ramos, Kaelynn Wilkinson, Bailey Lane, Claribel Castaneda, Betsey Miller, Allison Aldaba, and Lucero Sanchez.
“These girls have so much grit and determination,” said Head Coach Tanica Anderson, “and they’re just go-getters. They go out every race believing they’ll win.”
The junior high conference win was a special one for Anderson, too – her first all-conference win as a coach – the first of many, she hopes.
Another bright spot in the day, Indian freshman Tripp Lutkenhaus was named to the All-Conference squad after finishing the high school conference race in seventh place with a time of 17:54.54.
“Tripp’s best running is ahead of him,” she said. “I think he’s going to continue to get stronger and better, so we will see good things from him in the future.”
Cross country season continues next week with high school runners set to head to North Rock Creek in Shawnee for a meet on September 16.