Greene leads Foothill to Sunrise boys cross country title; Coronado takes girls crown

Foothill senior Carl Greene hadn't beaten Del Sol's Colin Smith in a cross country race all season.

Greene certainly picked a good time to end the streak.

Running in the Sunrise Region meet at Boulder City's Veterans Memorial Park on Friday, Greene and Smith broke away from the field, and the Foothill runner surged in the final mile to finish five seconds ahead of Smith.

Greene completed the 3.1-mile race in 16 minutes, 32 seconds and led Foothill to the boys team title.

"I gave it all I had," Greene said. "I got him at the bottom of the hill. I didn't expect the pace to be as slow as it was. Toward the end, I wanted it to be an all-out race."

Foothill had a team score of 53. Coronado was second with 64 and Tech third at 106. The top three teams and the top five individuals not on a qualifying team advance to next week's state meet.

"They ran pretty well," Foothill coach Tim Simonis said of his team. "They did a good job today, that's for sure. It was nice to win one."

Smith wasn't at full strength for the showdown.

"I've had trouble" with a pulled groin, he said. "I've been recovering, and of the last 10 days, I've taken six of them off. Every time I run, it flares back up. I didn't feel it running today, but I'm not as sharp as I could be."

Silverado's Dante Carter was third in 16:57.

Qualifying for state as individuals, along with Smith and Carter, were Del Sol's Casey Walter (17:13) and Nick Priego (17:24) and Silverado's Dennis Coughlin (17:30).

GIRLS

Coronado, Green Valley and Foothill turned the regional race into their own triangular meet.

The three squads combined to take 16 of the top 21 places, and all three easily advanced to the state meet.

Coronado, which had three of the top five finishers, won with 34 points. Green Valley (46) was second and Foothill (61) third.

Kristal Hosaka, normally the Cougars' No. 2 runner, took an early but narrow lead over a pack of Green Valley's Alyssa Rapovy and Lindy Eskin and Coronado's Erin Smith.

Rapovy eventually gained an eight-second lead over Smith at the two-mile point and turned it on from there, winning easily in 19:51 to Smith's time of 20:24. Eskin finished third (20:43), and Hosaka hung on for fourth (20:57).

"That was a really cool race," Rapovy said. "I started pushing all the way at the bottom of the hill, all the way to the end."

Coronado coach Mark Tondryk was pleased to come away with the team win. He had said before the race that the key was for his fifth and sixth runners to beat Green Valley's fifth runner.

The Cougars' three freshmen -- Emma Czerwinski, Sara Dort, and Logan Lucas -- finished in the top 13, and their sixth runner, sophomore Katie Monaco, was 20th. Green Valley's fifth runner finished 21st.

The five individuals qualifying for state were Tech's Taylor Coss (21:06), Basic's Jessica Raymond (21:21), Desert Pines' Marisa Denton (21:40), Eldorado's Gaby Vazquez (21:45) and Las Vegas' Shelby Nelson (21:50).