Coronado nets double-win at Frosh-Soph Championships

Coronado was a double-winner at the Frosh-Soph Championships on Tuesday, winning the freshmen boys and sophomore girls races at Desert Breeze Park.

Arbor View won the freshmen girls race and was second in the freshmen boys race.

Centennial’s Nick Hartle completed a back-to-back sweep of the meet. Hartle won the freshmen race in 2008 and repeated the feat Tuesday, setting a course record in 12 minutes, 59 seconds to eclipse Foothill runner Carl Greene’s mark from last season by more than 40 seconds on the 2.5-mile course.

“I love this course,” Hartle said. “My biggest disappointment is that I won’t be able to run it again.”

Hartle led from the start and extended his lead during the race. Centennial teammate Billy Gravley finished the sophomore race in second place with a time of 13:55.

Basic won the sophomore boys race with balanced scoring, placing four runners in the top 10, including Kyler Campbell, Dennis Coughlin and Kaleb Stumbaugh, who finished third, fourth and fifth, respectively, behind the two Centennial runners.

Coronado won the sophomore girls race, placing all five scoring runners in the top 15 to beat Foothill, 32-73.

Arbor View dominated the freshmen girls race, placing three runners in the top 10 to easily outscore Coronado, 27-45.

The closest team competition was in the freshmen boys race. Four teams were within four points: Coronado (73), Arbor View (76), Foothill (76) and Palo Verde (80).

Individual winners included Arbor View’s Amberly Halstead, Foothill’s Avi Dennis and Spring Valley’s Danica Fuente.

Halstead ran the fastest girls time of the day, winning the freshmen girls race. She took off fast at the start and was never challenged, winning in 16:53 to tie the course record set by Centennial’s Brittany Williams last season. Boulder City’s Jessica Tobler finished second in 17:17.

Dennis won the freshmen boys race using a sprint to the finish in the most competitive race of the day. Dennis, Tech’s Zach Zimdars, Coronado’s Ryan Gehring and Foothill’s Brian Marshall were closely bunched with a quarter-mile remaining.

“This has been a great season for both Avi and Brian,” Foothill coach Tim Simonis said. “Both are among our top five and they’re only freshmen. It’s pretty unusual to have freshman boys make such an impact.”

Fuente was an upset winner in the girls sophomore race. After moving from Mexico to Las Vegas this summer, she came to Spring Valley’s program with no previous running experience.

Spring Valley coach Jeff Edwards called Fuente a “raw talent.”

“She just does what we ask her to do, and her improvement has been tremendous,” he said. “She has been cutting her time by five seconds a week since the start of the season. She is the No. 1 runner on our team and has a great chance to make it to state.”