If the Pojoaque boys cross country team ran at the Los Alamos Invitational to boost their confidence before the District 2AAA meet this week, the Oct. 23 race gave them little such comfort.
Pojoaque placed fourth out of 15 teams in the meet, behind two Class AAAA teams and one Class AAAAA team, but first among Class AAA teams. However, the Elks beat District 2AAA rival Santa Fe Indian School by only a four-point margin.
“I don’t really care how we do against teams like Academy; what matters is how we matched up against Santa Fe Indian School,” Coach Alan Lockridge said minutes after the race as he waited for officials to post results. “If we beat them by more than four points, that’s something. It’s going to be that close in District, and it’s going to be that close in state.”
Pojoaque is scheduled to host the District 2AAA championship Friday at 3 p.m., where it will likely battle for the title against rivals Indian School and St. Michaels, the defending Class AAA state champion. The top three teams in that meet will compete Nov. 7 in Rio Rancho for the state title.
The Elks have raced to the front of their class this year, finishing ahead of other all other Class AAA teams in at least two meets. Lockridge and his runners said beating Indian School will be the Elks biggest obstacle Friday, and were disappointed they did not finish farther ahead of them at the Los Alamos meet.
“Today was a bit of a downfall,” senior James Viarreal said. “We could’ve done better as a team. We’re looking strong because we push each other. But (Santa Fe Indian School) has beat us before, and we’ve beat them, so it’s going to come down to the next two races.”
Academy won the Los Alamos boys race with 38 points. Pojoaque finished fourth with 137 points, and Santa Fe Indian School was fifth with 141 points.
Lockridge credited the four upperclassmen who have led his team this year — Viarreal, Daniel Santistevan, Sam Roybal and Dominic Martinez — for Pojoaque’s lead in Los Alamos. Viarrial finished the Los Alamos race ninth with a time of 16:53. Santistevan, Roybal and Martinez finished 19th, 23rd and 37th, respectively.
But Lockridge said he plans to make some changes to his roster before the District meet.
“We did not have a good race because our last half was weak,” Lockridge said. “Three or four of our guys didn’t have good races.”
Lockridge declined to say which players will not run in the District meet.
The Elkettes finished the Los Alamos race ninth out of 16 teams with 238 points. Los Alamos won the girls meet with 77 points.