The Sealy cross country team opened the season with a host meet last Friday night and came away with the team championship in the JV girls’ and varsity boys’ divisions.

The Tigers hosted two regular-season meets last year but this year’s Frio Friday Night Lights meet changed the course up a bit where the finish line was on the softball field for the runners to own their moment in the limelight.

“It was a cool atmosphere, we had a lot of people here. There were a lot of kids and it was really cool to see so many people here,” Head Coach Anthony Branch said Friday night. “The parents did a great job, we wanted the kids to have their moment on the softball field, we didn’t want to crowd them but they did a great job of knowing where the course was. The atmosphere was amazing and we had our Friday night lights, football’s going to have theirs and they’ll be great but we had ours tonight.”

Before the lights were needed, the junior varsity races were run with the sun setting over the hill and it was Sealy’s Ria Torres, a freshman, who came in first with a time of 9:55 for the JV girls’ race. Freshman Hailey Eder took third in 11:02 to help the Lady Tigers climb the team rankings. Sophomores Emmy McDaniel, Ella Ward and Emma Statham took ninth through 11th before junior Trinity Anderson (15th) and freshman Gracie Hall (18th). Sealy’s team score of 31 was a 31-point lead over second-place Langham Creek.

In the varsity boys’ race, seniors Xavier Olvera (2nd) and Daniel Medrano (7th) as well as sophomore Fernando Garza (8th) all registered top-10 finishes to keep the team score low. Freshman Gavin Almaguer took 13th, junior Kevin Culp registered 17th and senior Logan Eschenburg finished in 39th to help earn an eight-point advantage over second-place Needville. Only two Lady

Tigers competed in the varsity girls’ race but it was freshman Blair Konesheck that finished eighth in a time of 9:57 ahead of senior Hailey Arteaga who registered 39th in 11:48.

The Sealy JV boys took third from their division thanks in part to Conner Smith’s fifth-place finish in 16:29. Colby Eschenburg took 19th before Mason Withrow, Bryce Stanford and Ike Konvicka crossed the finish line in 23rd to 25th. Ian Waters (35th), Daniel Eschenburg (55th) and Tate Anderson (61st) rounded out the Tiger participants.

Branch said the meet would not have been possible without the help of the volunteers and Athletic Trainer Jeff McDaniel.

“We had so many awesome volunteers that hopped in to do whatever and at the end, they cleaned everything up. They were just unreal and without them we couldn’t have gotten this thing done,” Branch said. “Super proud of them and Doc McDaniel, he was everywhere he needed to be and then some, he helped everyone, can’t thank him enough.”