Cy Woods boys, Cy-Fair girls win 17-5A cross country meet

Oct. 28, 2011—The Cypress Woods High School boys and Cy-Fair High School girls cross country teams placed first in the District 17-5A meet, held Friday at Spring Creek Park in Tomball.

The top three teams and 10 individuals in each race will advance to the Region III Cross Country Championships on Saturday, Nov. 5 at Atascocita High School (13300 Will Clayton Parkway) in Humble.

Cypress Woods led the boys’ team scores with 39, followed by second-place Cypress Ranch (69) and third-place Cypress Creek (71).

Cypress Woods' team score was comprised by senior Craig Nowak (15:26.75), senior Colin Stoeber (16:25.09), junior Connor Hanson (17:04.53), freshman Zachary Quinlan (17:08.12), senior Kyle Ray (17:24.98), sophomore Raymond Berrones (17:35) and senior Cody Meineke (17:42).

"I think we did a great job out there today and our team stepped up to the challenge that I presented them with. We wanted to go out there and really just have a test run for the Regional meet next week," said Cypress Woods coach Greg Zarate. "We have been working in having a perfect team race and must do so next week in order to reach our goal. I am happy with what we did but we all know what we have to do on Saturday. Craig and Colin ran smart and gave us that strong punch that we needed and the other guys did a great job in finishing strong."

Cy-Fair senior Jacob Lefler (17.07) and Cypress Ridge senior Jacob Guzman (16.57) placed in the top 10 to advance to regionals.

In the girls’ race, Cy-Fair led team scoring with 33, followed by second-place Cypress Creek (44) and third-place Cypress Woods (90).

Cy-Fair's team score was comprised by junior Katie Boane (11:57.78), junior Emily Willingham(12:07.14), junior Faith Banker (12:08.51), senior Karen Hunsicker (12:12.24), senior Haley West (12:38.86), junior Haley Culpepper (12:54.04) and senior Katherine Wright (13:06.52).

"We were shorthanded on Friday and I thought our team responded very well to the challenge as it gave the girls a chance to showcase the team's depth," said Cy-Fair coach Tom Kennedy. "I told all the runners that they need to shoot for a top-10 finish. We took half of the regional qualifying spots, which is very satisfying given only two of those girls had qualified individually prior to this year.

"We are looking forward to a very challenging regional meet featuring competitive teams from Cy Creek, Clear Lake, Katy, Seven Lakes, and Cinco Ranch. Hopefully we can qualify for state and contend for the regional title against such great teams."