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YESTERDAY afternoon, several of the island’s public school student-athletes showed up at the Astumbo Middle School campus for competition in the second week of the Interscholastic Middle School Cross Country League. With family, friends and supporters alike lining the Astumbo grounds, runners put forth their best performance and efforts in the 1.5 mile race. Shortly after the boys’ race took place, it was the females who took to the course. Repeating their feat from a week ago, Agueda’s Johnecia Mendiola and Janiko Gogue cruised to another one-two finish to lead the field.

Huge lead

From the start of the race, the girls decked in red and black set the tempo as they blazed their way into a huge lead. Mendiola and Gogue never let down throughout the race and kept a very consistent pace. The two Pirates crossed the finish line in 10:32 and 10:53 respectively to beat out third-place finisher Maria Ollat of Astumbo Middle School. Ollat completed the moderately tough course in 11:15.

While all schools ran the meet simultaneously, the Lady Pirates were going up against two teams in Astumbo and Inarajan Middle School. The Pirates sealed the deal early on against the Inarajan Warriors as Adrianna Dupriest (11:15) and Johnia Siguenza (12:15) were the third and fourth runners respectively to finish before any Lady Warrior came across.
Inarajan managed to put a temporary halt to the bleeding when Eliza Peredo and Dariana Lujan managed to cross before another Pirate finished. However, the halt was short-lived as Agueda pushed several more across to claim the 17-40 win.

Clean sweep

With the victory all sealed against Inarajan, the Lady Pirates needed to work a little more to get by Astumbo for the clean sweep. Despite the strong finish by the Lady Dragons’ Ollat and teammate Jasmine Magsombol, Agueda remained tough and garnered the 21-34 victory over their opponents to improve their record to 3-0 on the day.

“The Lady Pirates have strong top-two runners and have proven themselves. If any team is able to get two runners out and in like they do, we need the next five runners to be ours to have any chance of winning,” said Astumbo Athletic Director John Zapanta. “Nonetheless, everyone did well today in a course that can be a true dictation of every athlete’s performance.”

Despite a convincing loss to the Pirates, not all was negative for the Lady Warriors as they managed to pick up a victory over the Oceanview Lady Knights in a battle for southern pride. The Lady Warriors’ Peredo was the first runner between both schools to cross the finish line. The Lady Knights had a runner finish the mile-and-a-half race in second before the Warriors took over with Lujan, twin sisters Gabrielle and Danielle Cruz, and Katelyn Chargualaf completing the first five to finish. At the end of the race, it was the Lady Warriors who earned the 20-38 win.

Click here for more results.