By Brian Argabright
The 830 Times
Consider Abraham Morales’ unfinished business at State “finished.”
Last year as a junior, the Brackett harrier finished as the runner-up at the Class 2A State Boys Cross Country Meet by about 14 seconds. This year, Morales won the State championship by 16 seconds ahead of Wolfe City sophomore Caden Thurman.
This was Morales’ fourth consecutive appearance at the State meet.
Heavy rains saturated the course at Old Settler’s Park in Round Rock this weekend, but while the sloppy conditions leveled the playing field early on, Morales showed why he was one of the best runners in the region.
At the one-mile mark, Morales had just a two-tenths of second lead over Thurman, but actually trailed North Hopkins’ Jonathan Hatley by the same margin.
One mile later, though, Morales had seized the lead from Hatley and never gave it back. His lead was nearly 10 seconds at that point, 10:25.8 to Thurman’s 10:35.3, but the senior turned it on and pushed his winning time to 16:04.4, about seven seconds faster than his runner-up time from last year.
Poolville won the Class 2A State team championship with 68 points. Four of the school’s runners finished in the top 20 while their fifth runner across the finish line was 21st. Hamilton finished second with 81 points, and Plains was third with 124 points.
This is Morales’ third State championship in the past six months. At the Class 2A State Track and Field Meet in May Morales took the gold medal in both the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs.
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Contact the author at drnhsports@gmail.com
