Leesville Road girls, Broughton boys win Cap-8 conference titles in cross country

A bubbly Nevada Mareno had every reason to smile after her race.

The Leesville Road junior said she’d been on a slump lately, forcing her to take five days of rest leading up to Tuesday’s Cap-8 Conference cross country meet. She ran very lightly, rolled out her legs and made sure to get enough sleep.

And it worked out, as a beaming Mareno walked back to the Pride tent as the individual girls’ champion.

The Leesville Road girls also won the entire league title at the WakeMed Park course in Cary, and Mareno beat her personal record by more than a minute with her first-place finish.

“Oh my gosh. It feels like a dream. I can’t believe I just did that,” said Mareno, who finished at 16:36. Her teammate Emily Pettis (18:27) finished second in front of Wake Forest’s Erin Spreen (18:32) to round off the Top 3 girls.

“I went through the first mile split, I looked at my watch and it said 5:11,” Mareno said. “I was like ‘This is either going to go really bad or really good.’ And so, I just went up the hill and was feeling strong and cruised right through the two-mile split. The last one’s always going to hurt, but I pushed through.”

Mareno’s previous best was 17:38.

She said her goal for junior season was to break 16:50 and she was pushing for 17:20 at the conference meet.

“She just went for it today,” Leesville coach Karen Hawkins said. “I’ve been trying to tell all the girls on our team if you go for something and you believe in something, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.”

The Pride brought in a team score of 18 to finish on top. Broughton was second in the girls’ race with 71 followed by Wake Forest with 100.

“We were happy with our performance on the girls’ side, but kudos to Leesville, who, I think, will probably be the team to beat in the state,” Broughton cross country coach David Christian said.

And he knows a thing or two about the big stage, since he’s led the Broughton boys to four straight state titles.

The Capitals won the Cap-8 as a team for the sixth consecutive year, coming in first with 20 points in front of the Leesville boys (58) and Millbrook (88) on Tuesday.

Capitals senior Jeremy Brown won the boys’ race to claim a third straight conference championship with a 15:35.

“DC, our coach, had a race plan for us and we didn’t back down much,” Brown said. “Each of us got our job done. It was really more a team-mentality race than running individually. I think we all performed well, and so I think we’re all pretty happy with the race.”

Broughton’s Robbie Simmons (15:47) and Leesville Road’s Nathan Gamble (16:03) finished behind Brown.

This story was originally published October 20, 2015 at 7:34 PM with the headline "Leesville Road girls, Broughton boys win Cap-8 conference titles in cross country."