Pojoaque Valley High School sprinter Alicia Quintana had a strong finish to her freshman campaign.
The Elkettes’ only state qualifier in the running events, advanced to the finals in the 100, 200 and 400-meter dashes, May 11-12, at the 4A-6A state track and field championship at the University of New Mexico.
She received medals in the 200 and 400, finishing in sixth and fifth place, respectively. She ran the 400 in 1 minute, and 1.52 seconds and the 200 in 27.78 seconds.
“It’s natural, God-given talent, really,” Pojoaque sprint coach Edwina Roybal said about Quintana. “What makes her so great is that she’s very coachable and she’s a tough kid.”
She had to tough it out after she finished her preliminaries the first day. Quintana was in pain, as she had ice wrapped around both of her shins.
“The plan is to rest up and ice my shins to come back ready for tomorrow,” she said. “Ive been working for this all season in district. I have a lot of heart in me, I’m coachable and this is just fun for me.”
The event that she didn’t medal in was the 100, where she placed seventh out of eight participants, with a time of 13.41.
She was the only freshman to compete in the finals of the 100 and 200.
Pojoaque also qualified for three other events, including the boys 4×200, which advanced to the finals as an 11-seed in the preliminaries.
“It’s tough being the 11-seed out of 14 teams,” Ricky Sandoval said, who ran the last leg. “I had faith in my team, we practiced all week and our hand-offs and everything were all good.”
The group finished seventh in the finals, which was last place, because Ruidoso High School was disqualified for a bad baton exchange.
As for the distance runners, junior John Hall was more than excited about his opportunity to participate in the 3200.
“I feel stronger and better than I will ever be,” he said on Friday. “Right now, I’m ranked as the sixth seed, but come tomorrow, I’m pretty sure it will be a different story.”
Hall was eluding to him believing he would finish better than his seeding suggested, which turned out to be true as he came in fourth place to receive a medal.
Hall’s distance coach, Chris Roybal, was not surprised by his runner’s confidence and energy.
“He always set the bar super high,” Roybal said. “He was bummed out watching the 1600 today, because he just missed qualifying for that race by 0.42 seconds, but I know that will motivate him.”
The 1600 required a qualifying time of 4 minutes, and 43 seconds — and Hall finished just outside that mark at 4:43.42.
It was also tough to qualify for the event because of district opponents, Miguel Coca from West las Vegas High School and Justin Angel from St. Michael’s High School.
Coca and Angel finished first and second in the finals of the 3200 and 1600.
The final athlete to compete was Esperanza Torres, who was coming fresh off a school record in the triple jump, May 4, at the Class 4A District 2 championship, at Robertson High School.
She jumped 34 feet, and 7 inches that day, to eclipse Sheri Lopez’s 2002 record of 33-11.
The sophomore, who is also coming back from a torn PCL in her knee, suffered last season, was feeling a bit uneasy about the atmosphere of the state championship.
“I’m nervous,” was all she could think of to say. “It’s different coming back from an injury, but once I make my first jump, I’m sure I’ll calm down.”
Torres finished 10th, with a mark of 33-1.50, but still has two more years to qualify and improve.
Overall, Taos High School swept the 4A meet on the girls and boys side. The boys won for a fifth consecutive time, while the girls captured their first championship since 2014.
The girls’ 71 points were 14 more than second place finisher, Sandia Preparatory School — and the boys ran away clean with 81 points, 27 more than St. Michael’s.