The Fort Stockton boy’s track and field team is within striking distance of capturing their second consecutive district crown following the first day of competition at the 4A District 3 Track & Field Championships on Thursday.

The Panthers sit in second place – 17 points behind Greenwood – with seven of 17 events being completed on April 13 at the Rangers home track and field facility.

Five Panthers earned an area bid by placing in the top four of their respective events.

Aryan Hernandez captured titles in the long jump and triple jump, marking the first time the junior won district crowns in those events.

Hernandez improved his triple jump distance by over 2 feet from a year ago and won the event on Thursday with a leap of 43 feet 8 inches. Hernandez soared a personal best 21 feet 9 ½ inch in the long jump to win the event by 4 ½ inches.

Senior Zane Hodges, who won the 110 hurdles and 300 hurdles prelims, placed second in the triple jump (42-8) to earn his first of potentially four area bids.

Senior Cruz Rojas earned two area qualification slots on Thursday, doing so in the discus (115-6) and the shot put (43-9).

Rojas is now a two-time area qualifier in the shot put and is a first-time area discus qualifier. The senior improved his shot put throw from the district meet a season ago by 8 1/2 inches.

Reigning 3,200-meter district champion Fabian Perez placed fourth in the event to advance to the area meet for the second consecutive season with a time of 11 minutes 8.71 seconds.

Freshman Diego Ronquillo earned an area qualifying spot in the pole vault with a personal-best clearance of 11 feet, good enough for a silver medal.

In varsity prelim races excluding hurdle events, Isaiah Garcia placed first in the 100-meter dash with a personal-best time (11.19), Eduardo Hernandez was fourth in the 200 (23.56), and Jesus Hernandez had the fourth-fastest time in the 400 (52.31).

Final races take place on Friday, April 14.

One Prowler secures spot at area meet

With many bids still up for grabs on Friday in the running event finals, one Prowler was able to garner a an area-qualifying spot on Thursday in Greenwood.

Freshman Summer Hinojos placed second in the 3,200-meter run with a personal-best time of 13 minutes 14.76 seconds.

Defending three-time district champion Ali Jackson will look to retain her crowns in the 200, 400, and 800 on Friday.

Jackson won the 200 prelims in 27.7 seconds and timed the second-fastest mark in the 400 (1:02.95).

The 800-meter run does not have a preliminary race.

Also qualifying for Friday’s final was senior Adriana Aguilar, who took third in 100 prelims with a time of 13.35.

The Fort Stockton girl’s team was in fifth place out of six schools following Thursday’s competition.

See complete results and write up following Friday’s finals in the April 20 edition of the Pioneer.