Coomes’ turn to lead pack

ORION – It doesn’t matter who leads the Newman Comet pack, just as long as there is a pack and they are close to the lead.

During Tuesday’s Three Rivers Meet at Hillcrest Golf Course in rural Orion, the Comets both stuck together tight and ran well for a 38-second split between five runners. Taking positions three through eight, the Comets had little trouble winning the meet with a low score of 20, a far cry from Sherrard’s runner-up showing of 79 points.

Quincy Coomes wound up as the Comets’ winner with a time of 17:02. Coomes was the Comets’ third runner deep for most of the race behind Chris Ahlers and Bryson Reyes. When the challenging hills put a strain on the Comets’ front two, Coomes pushed ahead and kept his teammates in a line.

“The team did great,” Coomes said. “It felt great to look back after crossing the finish line and seeing a big line of blue. I loved that. We just tried to stay in a pack together. I saw Bryson was struggling, so I tried to pick it up a bit. We ran as a team today, and that’s what matters.”

Ahlers finished just ahead of Reyes by 1 second to take fourth place. Drew Rosengren and Ethan Nash rounded out the Comet five.

“I didn’t expect the boys to do that well,” Warkins said, emphasizing the word ‘that’. “One thing that we did real well today was that our split was only 38 seconds between one and five. That’s really good. If we can do that the rest of the year, we’ll do well.”

Newman, however, was unable to get ahead of Hall’s Al Baldonado. The Red Devil senior had little problem scaling the hills of Hillcrest in taking the conference championship with a time of 16:23, using the ups and downs to his advantage. Kewanee’s Rolando Aguilar finished in second, 16 seconds back.

“I love hills,” Baldonado said. “Over the summer I’d always do my long run on a really hilly course. I love hills because they are challenging. It’s kind of like my playground, running up hills. Not so much going down hill, though. That was one of my favorite things about today was that I could take advantage of the hills.”

For Baldonado, the win felt great having come against the Comet clan whom have become not only tough competition, but good friends as well.

“I’m pretty good friends with most of the Newman guys,” Baldonado said. “We talk a lot. Bryson and I are usually back and forth. Last year, I beat him by a tenth of a second. It wasn’t quite as exciting this year, but it was definitely fun.”

Amboy’s James Blackburn and Bureau Valley’s Michael Eastwood also finished in the top 10. Blackburn finished eighth in 17:56, while Eastwood finished in tenth in 18:04.

Braedon Bonnell was Erie-Prophetstown’s top runner with a 12th-place finish in 18:18.