CLOVERDALE — Middletown High School dominated the girls race, placing five runners in the top six during a three-team Coastal Mountain Conference cross country meet Wednesday afternoon against Roseland University Prep of Santa Rosa and the host Cloverdale Eagles at Cloverdale.
Two PUC Prep runners joined the boys field as well.
Middletown and RUP had complete boys and girls teams (at least five runners). Middletown easily beat RUP in girls scoring while RUP edged out Middletown in boys scoring.
Girls
Competing on the 3-mile Asti course, which is located just south of Cloverdale, junior Nicole Pyzer turned in a winning time of 24 minutes, 25 seconds to lead the Mustangs, just 10 seconds off her winning time on the same course March 31 during the late winter/spring season (which was the COVID-19-delayed 2020 fall season).
Middletown teammates Maya Leonard, Cat Barriga, Issy Barriga and Olivia Gallagher finished third through sixth with times of 24:52, 24:54, 28:48 and 30:25.
“The girls did great,” Middletown head coach Taylor Tiraterra said.
Boys
Parker Boden, who did not compete a week ago in the Mustangs’ season opener at Six Sigma, placed fourth overall in the boys race won by Alexis Lorenzana of RUP in 18:08. Boden clocked in at 21:14. Also for the Mustangs, Evan Macklin, a new runner, came in seventh in 22:45 while Javier Perez, the team captain, placed eight in 23:13.
Other Middletown runners were Caden Gotz, 10th overall in 23:33; Bryton Caviness, 13th in 24:22; Dean McComas, 16th in 25:45; and Baron Chang, 17th in 26:11.
RUP placed five runners in the top 12 while Middletown had five in the top 13.
“It was a great race, the team is really coming together,” Tiraterra said.
The Middletown boys will get even stronger beginning next week when veteran Xander Romero is cleared to run for the first time this season.
“We’ve got a good team now and it’s about to get even better,” Tiraterra said.
Overall
While the Mustangs ran on a slightly longer and more difficult course this week — 3 miles compared to 2.9 a week ago at Six Sigma — Tiraterra said there was vast improvement across the board for both boys and girls.
“One of the super exciting things about today was that we not only improved our times, but we significantly improved them,” he said. “I’m really happy with that.”
Schedule
Middletown returns home to its Six Sigma course next Wednesday to host St. Helena and Fort Bragg at 3:30 p.m. Like Middletown, St. Helena has complete boys and girls teams. Fort Bragg also had a complete girls team Wednesday in its home meet with Kelseyville and Willits.
