Status quo for Stallions boys at CMAC

In what has not been a shocking revelation, the Madera South boys cross country team easily outdistanced Madera to win the County/Metro Athletic Conference cross country championship at Woodward Park.

Miguel Villar won the CMAC championship, outpacing teammate Nicholas Hernandez by nine seconds. Madera’s Tim Fitch placed third and kept the Stallions from sweeping the event.

Adrian Alvarez, Victor Ochoa and Seth Garcia finished fourth through sixth, respectively, and the Stallions came away with the championship.

Even No. 6 runner, Christian Nevarez, earned All-CMAC honors with a 10th place finish Wednesday.

“It means a lot to make a statement,” head coach Eloy Quintana said. “What was really impressive was our lower-level runners stepped up. They know they are held to a certain standard. The varsity boys showed the standard the lower levels are held by. For the varsity boys to come in and do what they do sends a message to the lower levels. That’s the goal of where I need to be and that’s where I will be in the future.”

The boys race culminated an otherwise dominating day for the Stallions, who won every team race from frosh/soph to varsity.

“For the kids to do that type of feat, it’s amazing,” Quintana said. “It shows that they care. They want it and that pride is on the line. By doing these kinds of things, they are bringing a lot of good notoriety, good successful reputation back to Madera. They care and it shows they are an amazing group of kids that work so hard, sacrifice so much and they understand that it’s for this. It gets their name out there for college.”

Fitch led the Madera boys team and the Coyotes finished in second place with 61 points. Brandon Ebersole finished second on the Coyotes in ninth place and earned All-CMAC honors.

“I think we really did well,” first-year head coach Alisha Brown said. “We took some huge steps forward. The varsity boys are coming along. They are starting to pack up. We’re shortening the gap in time from our seventh runner to our top runner. They are really starting to come along.”

The Madera South girls team ended Madera’s three-year reign at the top, outpointing the Coyotes 31-44 despite two Madera runners at the top.

Madera’s Unique Ford ran away with the CMAC title as a freshman. She beat teammate Olivia Zambrano by 41 seconds for the championship.

“The girls did an amazing job today,” Brown said. “Our freshman, Unique Ford, came through leading the girls. They really pushed and have been working as a team all season. I’m really excited to see what we can do.”

However, the Stallions, that placed all five runners on the All-CMAC team and had another just miss, took home the CMAC championship.

Veronica Ortega led the Stallions in third place. Freshman Diana Iniguez was fourth and senior Merlen Martinez-Lopez was sixth. Freshmen Trinity Leon placed ninth and Dariana Miramontes placed 11th.

“For our girls team to do what they did today shows we are on the right track,” Quintana said. “It’s been very hard to keep our girls to stay healthy at this point. For them to do what they did today was very gratifying. We’re very happy for them and they deserve it.”

“We were looking forward to league to have a great race,” Brown said. “Obviously, we are looking for the Valley Championships. The goal is to take top two and move on to state. We wanted to do well today and I think we did what we set out to do.”