Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Centennial cross-country team races to new heights

Centennial Cross Country

Wade Vandervort

The Centennial cross country boys team, consisting of, from left, Brighton McDonald, Ty Huel, Cooper Brown and Adam Ganz warm-up on the track during practice at Centennial high school, Monday, Oct. 21, 2019.

Centennial Cross Country

The Centennial cross country boys team consisting of, from left, Tucker Raymond, Eduardo Lopez-Cortez, Noah Norris, Brighton McDonald, Cooper Brown, Adrian Kotero, Ty Huel and Adam Ganz run in the desert nearby Centennial high school, Monday, Oct. 21, 2019. Launch slideshow »

The alarm clock would ring at 5 a.m. for summer workouts. Even the most dedicated participant would need motivation to rise at that hour on some summer mornings.

Yet, for the defending state champion Centennial boys cross-country team, those voluntary training sessions were invaluable because they helped strengthen the team bond. There were no coaches checking to see who showed up or to monitor the times, which allowed the runners to thrive on the honor system and push each other.

“It’s big when you want to get better, and you have a group of guys who want to get better with you,” senior Tucker Raymond said.

The Bulldogs only graduated one regular from their 2018 title team. Players sensed they would contend for the championship again. But they wanted more than being Nevada good — they also desired to make a splash nationally.

They’ve delivered on those intentions.

They have five of the top 15 runners in Nevada, according to athletic.net, which tracks cross-country times and rankings nationally. They also rank No. 1 in Nevada, with the second-place team 32 points behind. More impressive, they are 41st nationally.

And earlier in the season, they finished eighth out of 34 teams in the competitive Woodbridge Cross Country Classic in California. Raymond led the way with a 27th-place finish in 15 minutes, 11.39 seconds on the three-mile course, and two teammates finished in the top 50.

“It’s the internal drive of the kids,” Centennial coach Chris Martinez said. “They want to get better every single day.”

Centennial has won five state championships since 2008 — the lone Las Vegas-area school since Basic in 1998 to win the large-school title, according to Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association records. Runners at Northern Nevada schools tend to have more endurance from training at a higher elevation, not to mention cooler practice conditions, Martinez said.

The state meet is Nov. 9 in Reno, meaning that for as good as Centennial has been all season, they’ll face an unknown of competing at a higher elevation in the final race of the season. To compensate, they shifted a few local practices to higher-altitude Mount Charleston.

“This is the time of the year when you want the kids to be peaking,” Martinez said.

Cross-country is a sport that can become very individualized — you are, after all, running a race against other competitors, some of whom have the same jersey on. But for Centennial to win the team title, “there can’t be a bad score. All of us need top finishes,” senior Eduardo Cortez said.

And with that mentality, they push each other. Whether it’s beating the heat at 5 a.m. in the summer, or in the final push to peak in the last weeks of the season, the runners insist their team bond is the difference.

“We are all great friends, even outside of (training),” Cortez said.

Raymond has their best 5K time of the season at 16:03, which ranks fifth in Nevada by athletic.net. Cortez is eighth at 16:11.7, junior Noah Norris is 11th at 16:15.5, sophomore Adrian Kotero is 14th at 16:17.3, senior Ty Huel is 15th at 16.15.9 and Adam Ganz has the 23rd-best time at 16:29.9. The top five finishers of each meet earn points, which is advantageous for a team with Centennial’s depth — its seventh runner, Brighton McDonald, ranks No. 42 at 16.29.9.

Most of the cross-country team also runs on the Centennial track team, which finished second at state last spring. Raymond and Norris were two legs of a state champion 3,200-meter relay team.

“It’s our focus,” Raymond said. “Everything we do is with a purpose.”

Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21