Boyd wins opening XC meet in Temple

By TJ MAXWELL

Cove Leader-Press

TEMPLE – Cove junior Amber Boyd began her 2015 cross country campaign much like her 2014 season – with a strong win at the Temple Invitational at Lions Park in Temple.

Unlike last year, however, Boyd didn’t need a last-minute kick to notch a second-place finish. This year, Boyd blazed by her competition, finishing 31.5 seconds in front of her closest pursuer. She finished with a mark of 19 minutes, 14.5 seconds. Maddie Marrone of Round Rock McNeil finished second with a mark of 19:46.

Boyd shaved nearly 1:20 off her 2014 time registered at the meet last year.

“Amber is definitely a one of a kind,” said girls’ cross country head coach Eldridge McAdams. “Her, along with Marissa (Thomas), Kaylee (Steele) and Keturah (Taylor) and those younger girls, hopefully all of them step up.

“You have to give that pat on the back to Amber because she works hard. I’m not saying the other ones don’t, but being able to see somebody in the paper reaching those goals, we hope is motivating for the younger girls to get those accolades also.”

Senior Marissa Thomas also improved her time from last year, despite finishing back further in the field this year.  She finished 18th with a time of 23:53.4 last year and logged a 29th place finish this year with a time of 23:04.4, 49 seconds faster than last year.

The rest of the girls’ squad registered slower times this year. The squad’s top five averaged a time of 1:54:23.6 this year compared to the 1:55:54.9 from a year ago.

“We’re going to probably start off pretty slow this year but I have faith we’re going to pick it up and get faster each meet,” said Thomas. “That’s what we did last year and we did really well at district.”

Kaylee Steele finished 38th with a time of 23:42.8, followed by Olivia Rios (39th – 23:43.1) and Kayla Wilson (50th – 24:38.6)

Michael Aker led the Cove boys with a 16th place finish and time of 18:07, followed by Chase Thomas (34th – 19:10.7), Tristen Reno (36th – 19:25.4), Lane Teeter (48th – 20:02.6) and Xavier Wright (50th – 20:53.7).

Cove returns to action this morning at Belton’s Wildflower Country Club. The team will get familiar with Wildflower as it will be the site of the 2015 District Track Meet.

“Most the meets we run this year, we’ve ran before so we kind of know the courses and what to expect,” said Marissa Thomas.