Chavarria, Rangers race to top at home meet
Ranger College head coach Kathy Graham stresses to her team every day about the importance of running in groups as a way to improve their chances of winning a team championship.
They certainly did that on Friday.
The Rangers, backed by a stellar effort by is own version of the 'Fab Fab,' had nine runners place in the top 25 spots and cruised to an easy first-place finish at the 2020 William Graham Ranger College Invitational. Ranger scored just 33 points in the meet and easily outdistanced Jacksonville College for the top spot. Angelo State and Southwestern Adventist University took third and fourth, respectively.
The RC freshmen powered the Rangers to the top. The team's top six finishers were all freshmen, including Hugo Chavarria who outran the rest of the field to win the individual crown. As a team, Ranger netted six of the 12 fastest times.
Chavarria legged out a time of 27 minutes and 53.8 seconds and finished more than 10 seconds ahead of his nearest competitor, Matthew Jones of Angelo State University who checked in at 28:04.6.
Jacob Ozuna narrowly missed a third-place finish in the 8-kilometer race. He turned in a time of 28:25.3, just 7 seconds behind Jacksonville's Isiah Garzon.
Christian Parra, Christian Robinson, Allen Price and Angel Torres also starred for RC. Parra and Robinson crossed the finish line in eighth and ninth, respectively, with times of 29:06.0 and 29:19.2. Price and Torres penciled in runs of 29:30.1 and 29:37.5, respectively, and placed 11th and 12th.
Sophomore Jalen Ledezma was Ranger's highest-finishing upperclassman. The sophomore the Rangers' seventh top-15 runner. He was 15th overall at 30:02.4.
Freshman William Alm and Dylan Sasser also did well. Alm was 19th at 30:29.7, while Sasser was 22nd at 31:12.5.
