Joshua Ruiz Leads Belen Jesuit Boys to Portland, Allie Zealand and Noah Valyo For Individual Wins
- - -
With a large pool of runners from 12 states, competition was tight this afternoon at NXR Southeast.
After barely a day of rest from their massive FHSAA win on Friday, the Belen Jesuit boys embodied their strength and revealed themselves once more as a national powerhouse today as they collected their ninth win this season, continuing their undefeated
The WakeMed course in North Carolina did not seem to deter the Miami Havana brothers from a stellar performance with Senior Joshua Ruiz heading the Wolverines with a 15th place bid of 15:09.7.
Teammate Joseph Ruiz followed close behind taking 20th.
Similar to their victory lap at state, barely 48 hours prior, the team blistered all competition as they hit an average run of 15:29.92, scoring 84 points.
Belen Jesuit makes winning look easy as they took a 127 point lead ahead of the runner up.
- - -
As for individual titles, Allie Zealand of Virginia dominated the course.
The Covenant School's Reese Dalton, perhaps the favorite to win, went in with the fastest seed time of 16:58. However, Zealand took the audience by surprise as she shattered her previous personal best by over 30 seconds--a time planted from last season.
The Liberty University commit passed the tape at 16:34.3, hauling the now fifth fastest 5k time in the nation.
For the boys individual titles, North Carolina standout Noah Valyo took home the NXR Southeast title. The Wolfpack commit recently collected his first NCHSAA state title, a pitstop to NXR perhaps where he scored a new personal best of 14:40.08.
The Scoop:
Page 3: San Clemente and Santiago Corona with fastest CIF-SS averages, Several individual title repeats
Page 5: With one day of rest, Belen Jesuit take NXR Southeast win, Zealand and Valyo earn titles