The Fountain Hills High School cross country team had its final tune-up last Wednesday, Oct. 26. The Falcons ran in the Horizon Honors Invitational and tomorrow, Thursday, Nov. 3, they race at …
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The Fountain Hills High School cross country team had its final tune-up last Wednesday, Oct. 26. The Falcons ran in the Horizon Honors Invitational and tomorrow, Thursday, Nov. 3, they race at Crossroads Park in the Division III Metro Sectionals.
The Falcons will compete against 87 other teams at sectionals for the right to advance to state. The top 50% of scoring teams will advance to state, and the top seven runners from a non-qualifying team will also move on.
The Falcons had strong individual showings in the Titan Invitational two weeks ago at Crossroads Park. Juniors Skye Alker and Erin Hooley finished in the top five, but the teams didn’t finish in the top half.
Alker improved her personal record set at the Titan Invite and shaved 1.4 seconds off on her way to a seventh place finish in the Horizon Honors Invite (21:31). Hooley came in 15th place out of 135 girls (22:12).
Sophomore Racine Homyak was the next girl to finish, and she beat her previous best by 35 seconds (24:41). Freshman Ali Guerrette cut her PR down by seven seconds (25:30), and junior Eliana Bartman finished in 87th place (28:18).
Four of the five Falcons finished in the top half, and the girls team came in sixth place out of 16 teams.
Seniors Tyler Irvine-Violette and Zion Atwood finished side by side in the top 20. Irvine-Violette finished 17th (18:36) and Atwood finished one spot behind him (18:44). This was Atwood’s first time under 19 minutes, and last season, Atwood’s fastest time was 20:00.1.
“I was just really annoyed junior year that I couldn’t break 20,” Atwood said. “Over the summer, I just hit it hard every day. Ran three miles minimum.”
Freshman Colby Wright beat his previous best by 16 seconds (20:26), junior Dylan Romans cut 31 seconds off his PR (20:45), and senior Franklin Fiola dropped 33.5 seconds off his record (20:51).
Wright, Romans and Fiola are all new to the team this year, and all three finished in the top half of 179 runners. Juniors William Breen (23:24) and Nathan Eastman (23:41), and freshmen Matthew Gonzales (25:35) and Tyler Eastman (26:24) rounded out the finish for the Falcons.
Their performances helped the Falcons finish eighth out of 18 teams. The Falcons will try to finish in the top half again tomorrow at the familiar Crossroads Park.
“It’ll help a lot,” Irvine-Violette said. “We also ran there freshman year and then even once our sophomore year. It’s just a great course, I like it. Definitely knowing the course, knowing where everything is, and where to maybe push a little bit, where to maybe back off a little bit, where you need to focus the most is definitely an important thing.”
