Permian is riding plenty of momentum heading into the 2018 cross country season.

After successful seasons under first year head coach Hilberto Ochoa, both the boys and girls teams want to keep moving forward to new heights in 2018.

 “I think we’ll have an even better team than what we did last year,” head coach Hilberto Ochoa said of both teams. “We’re hoping that what we do in practice can carry over. These kids have logged anywhere from 600 to 700 miles during the summer and we hope that will show.”

The Panthers will get their first crack to show that off on Saturday at the Tall City Invitational at Rock the Desert Festival Field in Midland.

Here’s a quick look at both squads:

>> BOYS: The boys will have a lot of new faces on the team in 2018. Five of the top seven runners — four due to graduation and one move-out — from the defending District 2-6A champions are gone. However, the top running duo of junior Joshua Garcia and senior Oscar Sotelo are both back to help lead the way for the Panthers.

 “We lost a lot of seniors from last year,” Sotelo said. “The JV guys are coming up and pushing themselves and Josh and I are excited to run with them.”

The Panthers will rely on that youth to get them back to winning another district title. After the success of winning in their backyard a year ago, the motivation is strong to finish on top once again.

 “Last year, we all really wanted to win and we set our goal to win district after track season in May,” Garcia said. “We went straight to training. We want to be the best running school in the Permian Basin.”

Their coach is counting on them to be leaders, on and off the course.

 “Those two (Joshua and Oscar) are going to have to help the younger guys and pace them out during the race,” Ochoa said. “It’s going to be part of their job to help stick to the game plan and make sure that they run their own race and not anyone else’s.”

>> GIRLS: Like the boys, the girls will have new faces working their way on to the varsity squad and will also look to build off their own successes from a year ago. The Lady Panthers finished in second place in the district meet behind San Angelo Central and now see an opportunity to take the next step.

I’m really excited about the upcoming season,” junior Brianna Harris said. “We feel like we have a good opportunity to win district this year.”

Harris also has an individual goal of making it to regionals after finishing 11th in the district meet a year ago. She hopes to keep building team chemistry with the new faces. One of those new faces, junior Sarahi Quinonez, will run on varsity for the first time and is looking forward to working with the other girls.

 “We work together,” Quinonez said. “We have our individual runs but we all like to help and motivate each other.”

Ochoa is excited to see what the girls can do but knows he’ll be dealing with a different kind of challenge this year.

 “We’re a little thin on the girls’ side,” Ochoa said. “Bri and Sarahi and the other girls have put in the work this summer and we have a lot of quality coming back.

 “The girls are starting to understand the system and how it works and if you do it, it’s successful.”

The Panthers will run in five meets in preparation for the District 2-6A meet on October 11 at Thompson Park in Amarillo. Even with several new faces, Ochoa believes that there are chances to achieve even more success.

 “The goal of course is to be tops in the district,” he said. “Here at Permian, we set the tone last year of what we wanted to do and I don’t think it’ll be different this year. I think the kids have done well in adapting to the system and understand the expectations that we have.”
