Lady Cougs finish 4th at LaPorte

NORTHWEST PARK - The varsity girls finished in the top half of the field as they placed 4th out of 8 teams Friday. Junior Elizabeth Westlake ran only 21 seconds off the "elite" standard of 12:30 and finished 5th. Senior Amy Machemehl was right on Westlake's heels finishing in 13:01 for the 2 mile course to finish 7th overall. Junior Brittany Moreno continues to improve as she dropped a whopping 92 seconds off her time last week to go from 15:08 to 13:36 this week to finish 20th. Senior Tommi Higgins and junior Nicole Schinderle also made big improvements as they dropped 87 and 83 seconds and finished 32nd and 34th respectively. Junior Nikki Gifford also dropped 45 seonds to finish 41st. Overall the girls race was much improved over last week and they really showed they could compete.

The boys finished 8th out of 12 teams but were able to hold off district rivals Clements and Elkins. Clements finished 10th and was only 36 points behind the Cougars. Junior Bernardo Palomera led the boys with a 17:44 split over the 3 mile course coming in 28th place. Clements senior Jeff Edson finished ahead of Palomera in 22nd. Junior Allen Livingston was close behind in 30th with a 17:59. Sophomores Errol Hampton and Shalin Dalal continue to prove they belong on varsity finishing 39th and 40th with times of 18:35 and 18:36 respectively. Senior Sean Moreno came through in a big way by beating Clements' number 4 runner in the last 300 meters and finished 47th with 18:56. Five guys under the 19 minute mark was a good sign for the Cougars and shows they are making big strides...

Junior Varsity standouts were newcomer Edgar Rubio and Amanda Pena. Edgar finished 39th in 20:17 to lead the JV team and Amanda ran 15:45 to finish 17th over the 2 mile course. In the freshmen boys race Chris Ysais led the team for the second straight week and looked like he is running pretty well. Chris covered the 2 mile course in 13:27 to finish 25th.

Next week the team will compete in Rosenberg at Lamar Consolidated High School. They have been given the entire Labor Day Weekend to train on their own or get some much needed rest.