FAYETTEVILLE — For the first 2 miles, Springdale High cross country runner Gabe Gonzalez remained bunched together in a three-man lead pack.
Bentonville’s Will Aenchbacher jumped out to a fast start Tuesday, and Fayetteville’s Aidan Swain stayed right behind Gonzalez throughout much of the 7A-West Conference Boys Cross Country Meet at Agri Park.
But as he’s done plenty of times before, Gonzalez relied on a late burst of speed to pull away down the stretch.
The Springdale senior distanced himself from Aenchbacher and then was too much for Swain over the last few hundred yards, winning the conference meet for a second consecutive year with a time of 16 minutes, 3.5 seconds.
“It feels good,” Gonzalez said. “I mean, it’s hard work putting in.”
While Aenchbacher couldn’t maintain his early lead, his third-place performance (16:21.0) helped Bentonville capture the overall 7A-West championship with 45 points. Rogers High took second with 65 points.
Bentonville had three runners finish in the top 10, including Travis Diepenbrock (fourth at 16:38.1) and Michael Haynie (sixth at 16:58.2), plus and six runners in the top 21.
“I thought we had a good race (Tuesday), not a great race,” said Randy Ramaker, Bentonville’s boys cross country coach. “Usually with meets like this, some kids tighten up. Some kids don’t run their best, but we had a good enough effort to do it.”
Ramaker, in his ninth year coaching at Bentonville, said he believes Tuesday marked the first time the Tigers have won a conference championship in boys cross country.
Aenchbacher pushed the pace early on and led after the first 2 miles. But when he fell back, Swain briefly took a 5-yard lead over Gonzalez until the two-time champion made his late charge.
Gonzalez pulled away down the stretch from Swain, whose father is former Arkansas All-American runner David Swain. The junior finished second at 16:08.9.
“I’m very pleased with it. I wanted to try and win it, but I knew that was going to take a lot of work to do that,” Swain said. “And I really gave it all I got at the end, but Gabe just was able to get by me.”
Gonzalez said he tried to follow Aenchbacher’s lead early on and figured he could use his speed to distance himself from the pack toward the end of the race.
In doing so, the senior posted a time that was 27 1/2 seconds faster than his winning mark at last year’s conference meet (16:31). So how did his second league title compare to the first one?
“Probably about the same,” Gonzalez said. “Same result.”