Lady Eagles aiming for back-to-back gold medals
With all but one of the top runners back from its state championship squad a season ago, Holliday appears poised for another trip to the podium in Round Rock in early November.
Jaycee Lyons headlines the group and hopes to fill the void of Hannah Spears in the top slot for the Lady Eagles. Last season, Lyons earned a ninth place finish at the 3A Championships with a time of 12:05.3.
Joining Lyons from last year’s title winning team is Simone Mouras, Jaci Shepherd, Briar Griffin, Bailee Bowers and Kynzee Jackson.
Mouras just missed out on a top-10 finish at the state competition last year, coming in 11th with a time of 12:09.3 while Shepherd (35th / 12:40.1) placed in the top 40 at No. 35 with a time of 12:40.1. Briar Griffin rounded out the Lady Eagles squad with a 78th place finish in 13:09.6 at the state competition.
Joining the Lady Eagles this fall are Anahi Machuca, Hadley Vicars and Addyson Scott.
“It’s going to be tough to repeat,” Holliday head coach Glenn Griffin said. “Obviously losing Hannah and having a couple girls decide not to come back hurts. We’ll have to see how some of those younger girls come on. It’s going to take a couple weeks to look at these other schools and see what they have. I think I can get six kids under 12:40. We’ve got a good chance of medaling, I’m not sure about winning it again just yet.”
On the boys side, Cole Esparza returns after finishing seventh at the district meet a season ago.
Incoming freshman Noah Strohman and his brother Ryder will be household names in the area once the season rolls around. Noah broke the school record previously held by Tommy Rushing in 2002 in junior high and won first place nationally at the Nike Outdoor Nationals this summer in the middle school mile while his brother placed fourth.
Fellow freshman Cole Morrison and Tanner Simmons give the Eagles enough to be able to compete as a team this fall.
“We definitely would like to win district,” Griffin said. “We’ve got a chance. We’ve got two that are really good. I mean really good. One is better than anybody this school has ever seen. They’ve never run a 5k but I’m not going to doubt them. Getting out of our region as a team will be tough but the twins should both be able to make it to state with Noah having a chance to win.”
With the wealth of talent, experience and mileage returning, these Eagles and Lady Eagles should be in store for another banner season.
Holliday begins its season on Saturday, Aug. 27, at Boyd.
