San Antonio – St. Mary’s crossed fourth in its season opener Friday with last season’s star Jessica Waninger-Saroni taking the lead once more and newcomer DeAnna Patterson fueling a strong showing.

The Alamo City Opener found the right winds for Jessica Waninger-Saroni (Sr., Santa Claus, Ind.), who took a ninth-place overall finish as the first Rattler to cross. Waninger-Saroni was 30 seconds shy of the first place finisher, Trinity’s Vanessa Moreno, who completed the 4K race in 15 minutes, 17 seconds. Waninger-Saroni’s time of 15:50.0 was more than enough to show her capacity however, representing a top-10 finish among of a field of nearly 50 runners.

Another blue-and-gold runner was among the top with DeAnna Patterson (Sr., Converse, Texas) placing in the Top 20 in her first-ever cross country meet. A former four-year standout on the St. Mary’s basketball team, Patterson has the strength to compete across the athletic spectrum, finishing with a time of 16:32.0 for a 19th-place overall finish and a second-place finish within the Rattler cross country squad.

Friday’s meet marked the second year as a Rattler for Allison Manning, who finished 30th overall in 17:14.0, as well as for Alicia Sanchez, who completed the opener in 18:07.0.

Closing out the Rattler pack one after the other was newcomer Guadalupe Cordoba (Fr., Phoenix), Andrea Salazar (So., Pasadena, Texas) and Raquel Quintero (Jr., Corpus Christi, Texas), who finished with times of 19:39.0, 19:50.0 and 20.18.0, respectively.

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