For the first time in their high school cross country careers, Fort Stockton sophomore Ali Jackson and junior Fabian Perez qualified for the state cross country meet.

The duo showed tremendous improvement from a season ago to accomplish the feat on Oct. 25 at the 4A Region 1 Championship at Mae Simmons Park in Lubbock.

Fort Stockton head coach Sergio Guardiola said that his two cross country runners began their path to becoming state qualifiers long before the season started and they followed through by never taking it easy in practices this fall.

“I am very impressed by the amount of progress these two runners have achieved. They used last year’s experience as fuel for the organized team activities we had in the summer, through the season and all the way up to this point,” he said.

Jackson finished in 41st place at regionals in 2020 and the underclassman cut her time by more than a minute to punch her ticket to state.

Jackson placed 12th overall in the girl’s two-mile race in a time of 12 minutes 49 seconds. The sophomore was the fourth individual to qualify out of 10 qualification spots available for non-team qualifiers. Jackson made the cut for state qualification by 10 seconds after missing out on qualification last year by 38 seconds.

“Ali Jackson is a cold-blooded competitor,” Guardiola said. “She has no quit in her. She wants to be the best and it is exciting to be able to watch her compete at such a young age at such a high level.”

Perez qualified for state by crossing the finish line of the boys 5K race in 17th place with a time of 16:53. The upperclassman earned the second-to-last spot available for individual qualifiers as he was the ninth-fastest runner who did not qualify as part of a team.

Perez cut his time by over three minutes from last year’s regional meet – a race he placed 101st at in 2020.

“Fabian is the definition of work horse. He makes the most of every practice rep and is truly a student of the game,” Guardiola stated. “He puts in work outside of practice as well. Just drive down Dickinson or towards Carl’s Jr and see for yourself.”

The Fort Stockton boys finished in 13th place out of the 24 teams that competed during Monday’s race. Perez will be the only Panther to compete at state as only the top four teams from regionals get to send their top seven runners to state.

Juan Vela finished in 33rd place (17:24) and was 30 seconds away from state qualification. Lakota Franklin took 67th (18:20), Jesus Hernandez finished in 114th place (19:36), Kian Iseli placed 144th (20:37), and Ezekiel Soto took 168th (22:43) out of 175 runners who competed in the boys race.

Senior Leslie Esquivel placed 41st (13:32) and was 33 seconds behind qualification time. Esquivel finished in the top 25 percentile of all female runners. There were 179 girls who competed in Monday’s race.

“I believe everyone performed extremely well. We met the day after the district meet to discuss a two-week plan to put ourselves in the best situation possible to compete at regionals and the runners really dedicated themselves to do just that,” Guardiola said.

Boys Team Qualifiers

1. Canyon 85; 2. San Elizario 97; 3. Big Spring 117; 4. Argyle 126

Girls Team Qualifiers

1. Canyon 60; 2. Bridgeport 89; 3. Argyle 100; 4. Dumas 129

Boys Top 10 Placers

1. Christopher Moreno, San Elizario, 15:40; 2. Angel Sanchez, FW Diamond Hill-Jarvis, 15:46; 3. Carlo Martinez, Gatesville 15:56; 4. Andrew Valdiviezo, El Paso Riverside, 16:10; 5. Alex Niemiec, Canyon, 16:12; 6. Jayden Bustillos, El Paso Riverside, 16:15; 7. Adrian Solis, Big Spring, 16:16; 8. Noah Williams, Dumas, 16:17; 9. Isaac Gonzales, Big Spring, 16:18; 10. Mason White, Argyle, 16:24.

Girls Top 10 Placers

1. Abree Winfrey, Canyon, 11:59; 2. Avery Brown, Canyon, 12:01; 3. Kallie Bullard, Pecos, 12:09; 4. Vania Martinez, Gatesville, 12:14; 5. Sarai Chavez, Dumas, 12:24; 6. Mia Lujan, Dumas, 12:31; 7. Maura Journagan, Argyle, 12:32; 8. Amaris McCasland, Argyle, 12:34; 9. Lexi Maul, Pampa, 12:35; 10. Merari Fraga, Bridgeport, 12:39.