Fernley cross country has four top 20 finishers in Douglass Class Races

Robert Perea, The Fernley Reporter

The Fernley High School cross country team had four top 20 finishers in its first meet of the season last Friday, in the Douglas Class Races held at Lampe Park in Gardnerville.

This meet is unique because athletes compete by grade level.

In his first high school race, freshman Alex Mergell finished 20th with a time of 20:25. Trinity Garcia-Anders ran a well-paced race to finish 17th in the junior girls’ race with a time of 20:34.

In the senior girls’ race, Myla Bott ran strong to finish 13th in 19:30.

Kael Paz ran a smart, gritty race to take home first place in the sophomore boys’ race in 14.24.

“He ran strategically during the first half of the race, and then he was able to outkick the second place finisher by one second,” said Fernley coach Todd Wright. “In the nine years that I have been coaching cross country at FHS, this is the first time one of our athletes has taken home “the gold” at this race. We were competing against most of Northern Nevada including all of the 5A schools.”

The Vaqueros next meet is this Thursday, Aug. 25 at Fernley High School. Girls race at 2 p.m and boys are at 2:45 p.m.