With warm fall weather still intact, the Sonoma County League cross-country season opened Wednesday at the 2.7-mile Maxwell Farms Regional Park course, where the Sonoma Valley High School varsity girls followed junior Madeline Libbey on the path to victory, but the Dragon boy runners encountered a rough road.
While Libbey ran away with the SCL-opening tri-meet girls' race, finishing in first place with a time of 17 minutes, 37 seconds, it was a tight team finish for the Lady Dragons, who nipped Petaluma 27-28, as Healdsburg took an incomplete.
Also leading the victorious Sonoma girls were freshman Eliza Neeley's fifth place in 18:50; sophomore Grace Cutting's seventh in 19:27; sophomore Maddie Cashel's eighth in 19:59; frosh Helena Goodman's 13th in 21:26; sophomore Crystal Rodriguez's 16th in 22:20; sophomore Erika Itzel Reyes' 23rd in 23:49; and junior Alsy Howard's 26th in 26:19.
In the SCL boys' tri-meet opener, the Dragon boys finished third with 56 points, as Petaluma won with 27, and Healdsburg took second at 45.
Sonoma junior Travis Claeys came up just short of a win in the boys' race, finishing in second place at 15:43; followed by junior Leo Macedonio's sixth in 16:38; sophomore Angel Barcenas' 15th in 17:51; senior Ian Sloop's 16th in 18:05; junior Austin Chapman's 18th in 18:18; sophomore Campbell Martin's 20th in 18:38; senior Graham Herder's 27th in 19:35; and junior Pablo Cruz's 29th in 20:01.
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