Abby CC tackles Marathon Invite at Nine Mile

The Abbotsford girls cross country team traveled to Nine Mile Park for the Marathon Invitational last Thursday. The Falcons finished in sixth place as a team, putting up a final score of 136 points as they still round into form during the early portions of the season.

Assumption dominated the girls portion of the meet, with all five of their scoring runners placing in the top-15 for a final score of 33 points. Tomahawk took second with 57 points and Wittenberg-Birnamwood, despite two of their runners placing second and third overall, was a distant third with 91 points.

Azul Diaz had an excellent performance in Abbotsford’s second meet of the year. The junior posted a time of 22:01.2, taking off two minutes from her time at Timm’s Hill in their first meet of the season. A strong second half of the race saw Diaz picking up several spots from the opening mile, eventually earning her eighth place overall.

Iris Cruz finished second for the Falcons and was in a tight race with Marathon’s Greenly Treankler on the final stretch. While Cruz closed the gap between herself and the Red Raiders rookie, she could not quite complete the final pass, coming in just two-tenths of a second behind Treankler. She finished with a time of 26:53.4, taking 43rd place.

Ana Flores came in third for Abbotsford, posting a time of 27:49.3 and also nearly catching the runner in front of her at the end of the race as well. Aleah Frahm of Athens finished mere tenths of a second ahead of Flores, who ended up earning 49th place.

Asia Atkinson and Monse Ochoa rounded out the Falcons lineup on Thursday, finishing 54th and 69th respectively. Atkinson posted a time of 29:18.5 and Ochoa came in with a time of 33:46.50.

Next up for the Falcons will be a meet in Colby this Saturday, Sept. 9. Last season, poor weather led to the team dropping out of the meet, so this will be the first time the team has had the opportunity to run the course. The start time for the varsity meet is 10:30 a.m.