Following the chaos of Woodbridge was the local Doug Conley Cross Country Invitational in Tempe, Arizona. This is the fourth meet in the Thunder’s schedule. For this meet, DVCC ran in only the Non-Varsity and Invitational races.
The meet has been held yearly since 1982 in memory of Doug Conley, a 1966 graduate of Tempe High school who graduated from ASU in 1971 and became a math teacher and cross country coach at Tempe High. His nationally-ranked CC squad won the state cross country meet in 1973.
The course itself is at Shalimar Golf course in Tempe and was run in the early morning. The course consisted of mostly grass racing, but had some dirt on it as well. This made it difficult for most of the runners to breath and see. The temperature quickly rose to the 90s, which caused conditions to be worse than usual for the races. The Thunder knew this coming in, but realized that it would be the same for everyone, so they decided to power through the tough conditions.
The first race for the Thunder boys was the Non-Varsity race. The Thunder posted a score of 60 points and finished second to Highland High School. Leading DVCC was sophomore Jacob Cardon (17:28) in 6th place and Ohio native Mays Jones (17:29) not far behind in 8th. Next up was Lucas Young (17:30) in 9th, Ethan Bukowski (17:31) in 10th, and Johnathan Estrada (17:37) rounding things off in 15th. Even though they came close to winning the race they managed to finish nine seconds from their first runner to their last placer!
The next race was the Invitational race at Doug Conley, where certain Varsity members didn't race. Finishing first for the Thunder was seasoned Varsity member Sammy Van Alstine, who won the race with a time of 16:25. The next runners finished closely behind with Vincent Laurente (17:24) in 25th, Demetrius Love (17:26) in 27th, Nicolo Perciballi (17:28) in 30th, and Senior Ceth Reeves (17:40) in 44th. Those five scorers allowed the Thunder to place 3rd overall with a score of 142 points.
All in all it was another “thundering” performance at the 46th annual Doug Conley Invitational. Also a big thank you to the coaches and staff of the meet. Nothing would be done without them!
Join the Thunder next week as they travel to Casa Grande to compete in the Desert Twilight Cross Country Invitational. GO THUNDER!!