Best friends, teammates, Texans: Victoria Guerrero, Madelyn Hunter are together again

BY CAROLINE CRAIN

News Editor

The starting line isn’t new for cross country runners Victoria Guerrero and Madelyn Hunter.

They once wore Katy High School’s red-and-white, pushing each other through early morning practices and long runs. Now, they wear purple-and-white at Tarleton State University, still side by side.

However, the girls say their bond goes much beyond the jersey.

“She’s been my best friend since my sophomore year,” Guerrero said.

Hunter, a sophomore at Tarleton, is a year older than Guerrero. When she graduated, Guerrero stayed behind to finish her senior season as team captain. For Guerrero, the season was rewarding, but she felt the absence of her friend.

“I love those people to death, they’re like family to me,” Guerrero said. “But I missed Maddie. I wanted her to be there with me through those accomplishments.”

While Guerrero was closing out her high school career, Hunter was adjusting to her first year running at the University of Houston. The program was large and competitive, but something about it didn’t feel like home.

“At Houston, it was a lot. It was a big team with lots of young people,” Hunter said. “Tarleton feels more like home, and having [Guerrero] here, it feels like high school again. It's way more comfortable, even though it's farther from home.”

Their bond had always gone beyond racing. In high school, they lived just minutes apart and built daily routines around each other, like rides to practice, shifts together as baristas and even cooking meals side by side.

The summer before they both joined Tarleton, Guerrero and Hunter kept running together, staying connected to the sport and to each other. Guerrero had already decided she wanted to continue running in college, but Hunter had almost stepped away entirely.

“I was actually going to stop running,” Hunter said. “That summer I slowed down a lot. I was only doing a little early morning running, but not really seriously.”

Still, she joined Guerrero for one of her workouts on a random Monday, July 7, and something clicked.

After finishing the session, Hunter decided to reach out to Tarleton’s coach to see if she could still join the team.

“I kind of really wanted to do it,” Hunter said.

Subtle encouragement from friends helped, too.

​​“Whenever she was thinking about just not running at all, I was hinting at her, and so many people were telling her or bringing it up like, ‘Oh, it would be nice if y'all could run together again,’” Guerrero said. “So whenever, after practice, she was like, ‘Oh, what's his [coach’s] number?’ I was really excited.”

Both Guerrero and Hunter credit their high school coach, Jim Pat Darcey, with shaping their work ethic and competitive edge. His guidance, paired with the support they gave each other, helped them grow into the athletes they are now.

“I would say I'm still kind of new to this in a way because I didn't start running until high school,” Guerrero said. “And obviously there are a lot of people out there who have more experience than me, but I feel like one thing that helped me a lot… was my high school coach, because he taught me how to be tough and push through workouts, runs and races. I'm just so thankful to have gotten that experience and ended up where I am now.”

Hunter agreed about Darcey’s impact.

“I'm not a very aggressive person. I'm very laid back. Sometimes I even let people walk all over me. Not very tough, I would say,” Hunter said. “But I think the sport, in combination with Coach Darcey's guidance and my passion, made me a different person, a stronger person and a more aggressive racer. Running helped me stand up for myself, be tougher and be less sensitive.”

Darcey himself reflected on watching them grow.

“Maddie and Vicky are both outstanding young ladies. It was fun to watch them come into our program as freshmen and watch them develop year after year into, obviously, the caliber of runners that they became,” Darcey said. “They were able to do that through a lot of hard work and commitment and dedication, and they are both also two of the toughest, most competitive student athletes that we’ve had come through our program, which enabled them to be able to achieve some of their goals that they did.”

Looking ahead, Darcey said he’s excited to watch them compete for Tarleton.

“They are going to represent Tarleton State, themselves and their families,” Darcey said. “They’re going to make them proud, and anytime they put the uniform on, you’re going to get their best.”

At Tarleton, the cross country team’s smaller roster has brought a unique energy.

“It’s a lot easier to cheer each other on than it was when it was a ginormous team. We're all really supportive of each other, even guys and girls, we're all cheering each other on. It's not split up in any way and everyone's proud of each other,” Hunter said.

Guerrero said the team’s enthusiasm is contagious.

“I feel like everyone on the team wants to be there and is looking to improve. They're excited to run. So I feel like the energy definitely helps a lot,” Guerrero said.

The coaching staff has also helped create a positive environment.

“Coach Zent’s passion for the sport – I think the team matches well with him because everyone wants to be there and everyone wants to do good. It works kind of perfectly,” Hunter said.

Christopher Zent is the assistant track and field coach at Tarleton, and he agreed with that sentiment.

“It’s a really good dynamic that we have with everyone,” Zent said. “They all have a common goal of being the best possible runners they can be. And they have that desire, then, to work toward that, and they’re willing to be coached as needed to get to those levels.”

With two meets down and four to go, those goals are being chased.

“Our goal for just the cross country season itself is to improve upon what we did last year,” Zent said. “So, we'd love to have a top four finish in the conference and beat some of the teams that were ahead of us last year, as well. I definitely want to see all of them improve and continue to get better as runners and, obviously, become better people as well throughout the process.”

Together, Guerrero and Hunter are focused on continuing to improve individually while also helping Tarleton climb in the conference standings. After the season opener gave them a taste of what they can achieve, the pair is motivated to push even harder in the coming meets.

“Now it's like dangling a carrot in our face,” Hunter said. “We have [one week] (Oct. 4) until that race that we just want to go catch it.”

What makes this season meaningful isn’t just the times on the clock. It’s running side by side again.

“Not many friends or even teammates go from running in high school to running to the same college,” Guerrero said. “I would say it definitely helped me a lot, like settling in faster and easier because it was like I had a piece of home here.”

Even with that comfort, they say the experience still feels almost unbelievable.

“It's really kind of surreal,” Hunter said. “It's so crazy because it's Tarleton. Like, no one hears about Tarleton. I didn't even know about Tarleton until she visited here. And now we're here together. It's just really surreal and something that we're probably going to talk about for the rest of our lives.”