Coyotes improving in CMAC race
Wendy Alexander/The Madera Tribune
Madera’s Sophia Mirelez crosses the finish line in 18:57.2 to place fourth at the CMAC Championships on Thursday.
Madera cross country runner Sophia Mirelez highlighted the Coyotes’ morning at the County/Metro Athletic Conference Cross Country Championships at Woodward Park.
Mirelez broke a pack of Sanger runners to place fourth in the girls race to earn one of two All-CMAC honors for Madera.
Mirelez ran with the top three Sanger runners for the first mile and then was in second place at the second mile. However, she fell to fourth at the finish and was nine seconds behind third place.
Bianca Scott earned an All-CMAC patch with a 12th place finish and Mayce Atherton was four seconds behind her to place 13th.
Angelica Garcia placed 16th while Natalia Zambrano finished the Coyotes’ scoring in 18th place.
Miriam Jimenez was 27th for the Coyotes and Tori Medrano placed 31st.
“Sophia did phenomenal,” head coach April Smith said. “Each girl had their own game plan. Bianca came out of her shell for the first time and raced really well. I couldn’t be happier.”
The Coyotes hoped to challenge Madera South for second in the CMAC and finished just seven points shy to end up third. However, Smith was pleased with her team’s effort.
“It was awesome,” she said. “We had a lot of personal records, a lot of trust and a lot of gameplans.”
The Coyote boys team ran as a full team for the first time and placed fifth, three points better than San Joaquin Memorial for sixth place.
“We had a boys team,” Smith said. “One of our boys is a 100-meter hurdler and is not a cross country runner and he did awesome. He’s the reason why we have a team because he’s the fifth. Brian (Angeles) and Gabe (Hernandez) knocked it out of the park. Every one of them had a personal record. They did great.”
Hernandez led the Coyotes with a 22nd place finish while Angeles was 26th at an even 20 minutes.
Angel Saavedra was third on the team in 29th place. Kelvyn DeLeon placed 24th and Edwin Aguirre completed the Coyotes’ team with a 36th place finish.
Madera will host and run Thursday’s Central Section Championships at Woodward Park. The boys run first at 2 p.m. while the girls will close the day of races at 3:30 p.m.
