Week four of the high school cross country season is in the books, and the state-ranked Spartans girls and boys teams had another successful showing at the Seven Lakes Showcase Invitational in Katy on Saturday morning. 

Varsity Boys

After finishing behind Strake Jesuit and just missing out on a podium spot at Friday Night Lights in The Woodlands a week ago, the Stratford Varsity Boys bounced back in a big way this week and captured first place in the team results ahead of Strake, Cinco Ranch, and thirteen other schools.

In the individual competition, Stratford Senior Emanuel Galdino separated from Reese Vannerson of Strake Jesuit about two-thirds of the way into the race, and cruised to the overall title with with a blistering 15:25 5K.  Emanuel’s effort was the 2nd fastest time ever run on the Seven Lakes course.  

In all, our boys ran very well together as a team and six Spartans earned top-20 medals out of 121 runners.  Behind Galdino, Maddox Durnell was 6th place, David Kalwahali 9th, Jackson Potter 13th, Zach Tobin 14th, William Wylie 20th, Daylan Rushing 34th, Jonathan Lumpkin 38th, and Fernando Mejia 94th. 

Varsity Girls

The Spartan Varsity Girls are a young team with no seniors, but they continue to demonstrate an incredible amount of heart, grit, and teamwork every single week. Their depth was evident this week as they captured second place in the team competition, only behind #4 state ranked Kingwood, and ahead of 11 other teams. 

Niamh Collins (9th), Allie Weinhardt (10th) and Sienna Yoder (19th) earned top-20 medals, followed by Anastasia Sciretti (21st), Maggie Pearce (24th), and Megan Broom (46th).  There were 118 runners in the varsity girls 5k competition. 

Sub-Varsity

In the JV Girls race, Freshman Ola Jalal took 2nd place overall, and Mary Mitchell (6th) and Amelia Bommer (15th) also earned top-20 medals.   The JV girls finished 4th place as a team.

The JV Boys were led by Jacob Smith who earned a top-20 medal by finishing 6th place overall.  

The Freshman boys had another impressive showing this week with Nathan Hirst getting the first-place victory, and teammate Ben Pearce finishing close behind  in 2nd place.  Brody James (9th) and Samuel Jordan (15th) also ran very well to earn medals, and the Freshman Boys finished  2nd place in the team results. 

All Stratford teams will compete again next Saturday morning at the Strake Jesuit Crusader Invitational at Bear Creek Park.