SANTA ROSA — Impressed with the improvement his young team has made in the last few weeks, Middletown High School cross country head coach Taylor Tiraterra gave a big thumbs-up to his squad’s performance Saturday during the annual Viking Opener at Spring Lake in Santa Rosa.
“Oh I was stoked,” Tiraterra said of the nine Middletown runners who take part in the 2-mile meet, which is divided into several divisions for boys and girls. “I was especially happy with how well some of our first-time runners did, especially against all those Sonoma (County) schools with the bigger teams.”
Girls
Nicole Pyzer, a junior and team captain, had the best finish for the Mustangs in the junior/senior race as she placed 30th out of 71 runners with a time of 14 minutes, 27.7 seconds. Also for Middletown, first-year runner Olivia Gallagher came in 64th at 17:55.6.
Winner Hayley Ballard of San Domenico hit the finish line in a personal-best 12:04.2.
In the frosh/soph division, freshman Cat Barriga finished a solid 24th out of 80 runners with a personal-best time of 14:03.0. Older sister Issy Barriga, a sophomore, placed 49th overall with a personal-best time of 15:47.
Race winner Hanne Thomsen of Montgomery topped the field in at 11:20.5.
Boys
Parker Boden of Middletown was 42nd out of 58 runners in the senior boys race with a personal-best time of 12:26.1. Alex Cocquyt of Nueva School won the race in 10:32.7.
In the sophomore race, Evan Macklin was 29th with a time of 12:20.8 and Dean McComas finished 42nd at 14.05.2 to lead Middletown, personal-best times for both runners.
Athena Ryan of Sonoma Academy won in 11:03.6.
In the freshman race, Caden Gotz (57th) and Aiden Cadwallader (74th) represented Middletown in the 75-runner field. Gotz finished in 14:42.0 to Cadwallader’s 21:39.8.
The race winner was Ome Zuniga of Santa Rosa in 11:19.6.
Schedule
Middletown hosts St. Helena and Fort Bragg in a Coastal Mountain Conference meet Wednesday at Six Sigma Ranch and Winery near Lower Lake. Action begins at 3:30 p.m.
“This whole team is just so positive right now, it’s really been heartwarming to see,” Tiraterra said.
