Coast runners lower times at Morro Bay meet

The Coast Union cross-country team ran in the Morro Bay Invitational on Saturday, Sept. 10, and coach Jim Hurley characterized his team’s effort as excellent, given that most runners bested their 2015 times in the 5K.

The invitational placed seniors and juniors from all 20 schools in one group, and all freshmen and sophomores in a separate group. For Coast Union, with three boys in the junior-senior group, Paul Butterfield placed 63rd out of 230 runners in 17 minutes, 35 seconds.

David Nolan finished 150th (23:01), and Alam Romo came in 175th (23:24) in that group. Hurley said the all three boys’ times were more than a minute faster than their last year’s marks.

In the freshman-sophomore group, with more than 100 runners competing, Coast’s Colby Ratzat was the fastest Bronco but “for some reason he was not listed in the results,” Hurley said. The second sophomore to run, Ethan Walters, came in at 21:08, a two-minute improvement from 2015.

Sophomore Cesar Hernandez (21:51) was the “most improved from last year,” beating his 2015 time by “three or four minutes,” Hurley continued. David May ran well, he said, but the officials did not report his times.

On the girls side, Vanessa Ramirez ran in 24:01, Karina Mendoza Lopez finished in 25:43, and Maria Ramirez came in at 28:40.

Hurley said, “On a sad note, the team missed Dante (Garcia), and on our shirts this year we have his initials printed on the side.”

Garcia died in a swimming accident in July, and had come out late for last year’s team but showed remarkable progress in challenging the top runner, Butterfield.

Coast will race Santa Maria at home on Sept. 21.

This story was originally published September 14, 2016 at 8:28 AM with the headline "Coast runners lower times at Morro Bay meet."