As of Saturday night, the Hot Springs Lakeside Invitational had 27 teams signed up for Tuesday’s cross country meet with registrations still open. El Dorado will be one of the schools scheduled to run in the meet, which should be a step up in competition.
Among the schools signed up are Lake Hamilton, Lakeside, Sheridan, Little Rock Parkview and DeQueen.
“As far as South Arkansas, everybody that’s worth anything south of Little Rock is going to be there,” said El Dorado coach John Koonce. “You’re not going to get the North Arkansas teams in a meet like this but all of the 5A South, the 4A South, the central teams, all of them that are good are going to be there.”
El Dorado is coming off a dominant showing in Saturday’s Lori McDougald Memorial at Moro Bay. Koonce said the Lakeside race will be beneficial even before knowing the results.
“It’s the best level (of competition). It’s better than our conference meet is going to be, but it’s a preview of our conference meet,” he said. “Pretty much all of our conference teams are going to be there. It’s an opportunity for them to go compete against Lake Hamilton, compete against Lakeside, compete against Benton. On paper, the boys are in the five or six spot. On paper, the girls are in the five or six spot. I think we’re better than that. It’s time for them to go prove that.
“They showed they can run as a pack. They can push each other. How are they going to handle that bigger pack where there’s people trying to break them up? It’s going to be a new experience for some of those kids with that pressure on. But it’s good to get that this early.”
On Saturday, El Dorado moved up freshmen Julian Marquez and Logan Nutt to the boys’ team and Jazmine Aguirre to the Lady Wildcats’ squad. Each of the ninth graders medaled in their senior high debut with Aguirre winning the girls’ race.
“Today’s meet was a perfect opportunity to break those freshmen in. Let their teammates pace them. But it’s going to be a different story on Tuesday,” said Koonce. “It’s going to be an opportunity to see exactly where we are and then go back to the drawing board. What do we need to work on? We’re going to know after Tuesday. I’m excited.”