Westlake, Machemehl lead girls at Mayde Creek

MAYDE CREEK HIGH SCHOOL-Junior Elizabeth Westlake and senior Amy Machemehl placed 3rd and 4th Friday to pace a strong first competition for Lady Cougs. The race was a practice meet and included a three mile aerobic threshhold run for the ladies against the Mayde Creek Lady Rams and the Morton Ranch Lady Mavericks. Mayde Creek's top runner quickly dropped the idea of a threshhold run and took the race out hard from the beginning covering the three mile course in 19 minutes 31 seconds. The cougar women ran very intelligently and worked there way up throughout the race. Junior Brittany Moreno had a strong finishing kick to move to 12th in the final meters and senior Tommi Higgins, junior Nicole Schinderle and junior Nikki Gifford finished 17th, 18th and 19th respectively. Newcomers Gina Keidel and Sahar Halim had good day for their first cross country race ever...

Junior Bernardo Palomera paced the boys' team with an 11th place finish over the 4 mile course and sophomore Shalin Dalal was the cougs' number two man with a gutsy performance. Sophomore Juan Trujillo, junior James Currie and senior Sean Moreno rounded out the top five spots for the cougar men.

Next Friday the cougars will move on to even stiffer competition as they travel the The Woodlands High School's "Friday Night Lights" Meet at Bear Branch Park. The Woodlands boys are the back to back defending state champions.