ROCKINGHAM — In their final home meet of the season, the Richmond Senior High School boys’ and girls’ cross country teams both earned second place on Tuesday.
The 3.2-mile race was held at Hinson Lake, Richmond’s home course, and it was also senior night. Richmond honored three male and two female runners ahead of the competition.
Head coaches Ashleigh Buie and Morgan Tedder thanked each of the runners for their contributions to the program over the last several years.
Also running were fellow Sandhills Athletic Conference schools Union Pines and Scotland, with both Union Pines teams winning the meet. Scotland’s two squads each took third overall.
Mendez, Munn pace Lady Raiders to second place
The Union Pines’ girls team placed all five of its qualifying runners in the top seven spots, taking the meet with 18 points. The Lady Raiders’ second-place finish saw them earn 55 points, eight points better than Scotland.
Sophomore Mariana Mendez helped disrupt the top of the scoresheet with a fourth-place finish, crossing the finish line in 23:22. Although it wasn’t her best time of the fall, it was 42 seconds faster than her final time during the first race at Hinson Lake earlier this year.
Fellow sophomore Ella Munn, returning from a week off due to an injury, impressed with a 10th-place finish. Her time was 25:22, just ahead of teammates sophomore Alivia Webb and senior Sheccid Heaton.
Webb took 3:13 off her time from her previous run at Hinson Lake, taking 12th overall (27:20). Heaton also improved her mark on her home course, erasing 32 seconds from the last time out (27:38, 13th place).
Junior Kaleigh Cloninger rounded out the points for the Lady Raiders, finishing in 16th place with a final time of 28:27, shaving 19 seconds off her other time.
Also competing for Richmond were freshman Presley Dawkins (30:32), sophomore Nelly Cadena (31:14), senior Jenifer Gomez (33:50) and freshman Ella Parker (43:45).
Seniors Sanchez, Simmons secure Raiders into second place
Also proving to be a tough opponent, the Union Pines boys’ team ran away with the win with 15 points. All of the Vikings’ point qualifiers finished in order in first through fifth place.
Richmond earned 53 points and Scotland finished the race with 75 points. Seniors Christian Sanchez and Kodie Simmons were the top-two finishers for the Raiders.
Sanchez’s time of 21:52 put him in eighth place overall, while Simmon wrapped up his final home race with a mark of 22:15 (9th place). Both times were season-bests at Hinson Lake, with Sanchez erasing 2:42 from his total time and Simmons knocking off 35 seconds.
A pair of freshman runners were the next two to complete the race, starting with Jake Richardson (24:00, 11th place), followed by D.J. Gainey (24:08, 12th place). Both runners took off nearly two minutes.
Senior Naaman Perakis placed 13th overall with a new personal record time of 24:21, the only Richmond runner on the day to set a new best time. His 13 points rounded out Richmond’s scoring.
Finishing the race for the Raiders was junior Toby McInnis, who registered a final time of 26:34 in 16th place. That mark was exactly four minutes faster than the last time he ran at Hinson Lake.
Richmond’s teams will close out the regular season next Tuesday on the road at Pinecrest High School. Hoke County High School will also run, with races starting at 5 p.m.
