The 5th Annual Laughlin Invitational sponsored by Palo Verde Physical Therapy was held on Saturday at Mountain View Park in Laughlin. The Ramada Express and WARMC also contributed to this year’s event by supplying water for all finishers. The 2005 Laughlin Invitational attracted 27 teams from Arizona and Nevada as well as an Australian Select team with 477 runners competing over a 3.0 mile course for High School races and 1.85 miles for the Junior High races.
Laughlin Junior High School had 2 girls and 7 boys competing. Kim Benavides led the girls with a 4th place finish in 15:03 and Ashley Venegas finished 7th in 15:34. For the Junior High boys, Brandon Fajardo led the way with a 7th place finish in 13:14. Other finishers included Scott Hamm (9th) in 13:38, Aaron Banuelos (14th) in 14:19, Andrew Sindelar (15th) in 14:21, Anthony Sheely (16th) in 14:41, Cody McGeshick (17th) in 14:43, and Andrew Young (22nd) in 15:25.
The Laughlin High School girls were once again led by freshman Alexandra Condray with a 23rd place finish in 24:12. Cady Groves was next finishing 40th with a time of 25:55. The scoring was completed with Gracie Geremia (46th) in 26:25, Chynna Yates (50th) in 27:26, Brenda Cortez (53rd) in 27:59, and Christine Acosta (62nd) in 30:03.
For the 2nd year in a row, Vo-Tech High School from Las Vegas won the girls team event with a score of 31. Faith Lutheran was next with 71 and Shadow Ridge was 3rd with 88. Laughlin finished 9th with a team score of 212.
The Varsity boys race featuring 109 runners was the most closely contested of the day with only 3 points separating the first 3 teams. Shadow Ridge won the event with 75 points while Durango and Vo-Tech High Schools tied with a team score of 78. In cross-country, a tie is broken by determining which team’s 6th runner finished highest which gave Durango the edge and the 2nd place trophy.
The Laughlin boys were led by Senior
Scott Eubanks with a 4th place finish in 17:47. Also earning a medal was
Derek Fajardo finishing 16th in 19:07. Other Cougar boys competing in the varsity event for Laughlin were
Devin Tilley (47th) in 20:40,
Kyle Winters (56th) in 21:02,
Julian Estrada (80th) in 22:15,
Richard Swartz (83rd) in 22:17, and
Shaun Rees (95th) in 24:31. The Laughlin boys finished 8th in the 17 team field with 203 points. Competing in the open event for Laughlin were
Steven Koonce (24:32),
Josh Fajardo (24:59), and
Jacob Magaw (30:40).
Quotes from Coach Lori Petrik:
“My husband, Tony, and I are very pleased with the turnout today. We keep growing each year with almost twice as many teams and runners competing this year compared to the 2004 event. In the past, we have typically just attracted the smaller schools out of the Vegas area. This year we had seven 4A schools from Las Vegas participate which is a trend that I hope will continue. Because we are now attracting the larger schools, next year we will probably add 2 more races and have both small school and large school races.”
“I thought our kids gave a good effort today but I don’t think it was our best overall outing as a team for either the boys or the girls. We’re going to have to close the gap between our number 1 and 5 runners if we’re going to be competitive as a team particularly in the larger meets.”
“I thought Scott ran well today. Derek went out a little too hard in the first mile but was able to hang on for 16th. Julian has been ill this week. We’re going to have to get him healthy again if we are going to be competitive.”
“Most of our races so far this season have been 2.5 miles or less. The longer course distance of 3.0 miles hurt our girls a bit since most of them got a late start on the season so just are not where they need to be conditioning wise yet. I thought Alexandra and Cady did a great job for us today. This was Cady’s best race this season as she has been our number 4 runner in the past and ran 2nd for us today.”
“A special thanks to Palo Verde Physical Therapy, WARMC, and the Ramada Express for their contributions to our event as well as all the parents, students, and faculty who came out and helped make the 2005 Laughlin Invitational a success.”
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Laughlin High School will host a multiple team meet this Wednesday at Mountain View Park. Schools competing will include The Meadows School, Mohave, River Valley, Boulder City, Faith Lutheran High Schools. Junior High races start at 3:30 and high school races at 4:30.
