The Peñasco Invite on Sept. 7 was a meet McCurdy Charter School cross country coach Chris Sanchez had circled on the schedule since before the start of the season.
Not only because the terrain of the course surrounding Peñasco High School closely mimicked what he has emphasized in practices with running hills, but because Peñasco is Sanchez’s alma mater, and it’s also a place where he coached the cross country teams on two separate occasions.
His girls team ran with a purpose to make their coach proud, and the Lady Bobcats finished second overall as a team with 89 points. The host Lady Panthers from Peñasco took first place with 61.
“We ran a course the last two days of practice similar to this with hills on both ends, and I think it really helped them,” Sanchez said. “I can’t ask for better because our goal was a second-place finish. I didn’t think we could beat Peñasco, but I knew we could take the other teams.”
Sanchez admitted the team did not have their sharpest week of practice with the short week with the Labor Day Holiday.
“I think the nerves got some of the girls, because this is my hometown and they didn’t want to let me down,” he said. “Honestly, we had a lousy week of practice, it was hard to get them motivated and it was super hot.”
On the cooler Saturday morning, senior Jayme Bustos anchored the team with an eighth-place result and Emma Lovato crossed the finish line in 12th, but it was the trio of Allison Cantrell, Jeneva Serrano and Missy Yordy who helped seal second place.
The three finished in 20th, 21st and 28th, helping McCurdy edge out defending 3A champion Robertson High School.
The Lady Cardinals placed three runners in the top seven, including second and third place finishes by Maya Luu and Liana Fernandez, but their fourth and fifth runners did not cross until 40th and the 44th and final place.
While McCurdy celebrated its performance, encouraging was the word of the day for the Española Valley High School cross country teams.
The Sundevils paced to a third place finish with 78 points behind Robertson (65) and Cuba High School (50).
Junior Juan Branch made the most of his official return to the sport after missing last season due to a knee injury, and he cruised to a fourth place finish in 18 minutes, 33 seconds.
“This course is hard and one of the tougher ones of the year,” Branch said. “To get an 18:33, I think that’s pretty good. It’s all uphill and I think if it was a flat course, I would have run a good 17 (minute range).”
The most encouraging sign for the Sundevils was how they toppled over district opponent Moriarty High School. The Pintos scored 118.
“We had a really tight pack today,” Española head coach Landen Elliott-Knaggs said. “I was out there looking for my seventh man, and he had already well run by. They all came by really fast and the way we beat Moriarty is a great sign for districts.”
Andre Lujan was the second Sundevil to pass the finish line, and he did so in 12th place, two spots behind Mesa Vista High School’s Damian Trujillo. Kodi Rodriguez was McCurdy’s top runner in, finishing in 23rd out of the 72 total runners.
The Española girls finally fielded a full team of five runners for the first time this season, and they totaled 149 behind the other five schools with full teams.
Emily Chavez highlighted the team by taking 13th place. The girls field had 45 total runners.
“This course is tough because it’s basically a two-and-a-half mile loop,” Elliott-Knaggs said. “I’m used to seeing them five to eight times during the course, and today I got to see them three times. I had to remind them that the whole back stretch was a nice long downhill and they were going to be on their own; they have to pick someone and stay on their shoulder or they’re going to be hurting all by themselves. Looks like they all really took that to heart and were aggressive in the middle section on their own.”
Meet Notes
Two-time Class 2A individual state champion Carly Gonzales carried Peñasco with a fourth place finish in 22:54.
The Lady Panther pack of Elisha Mustache (14), Analise MacAuley (15), Adrianna Tafoya (17) and Rhyen Vigil (18) followed to secure the win.
East Mountain High School’s Marissa Case won the meet in 20:33, and Robertson’s Luu and Fernandez battled each other down the wire, finishing one second apart at 21:12 and 21:13.
For the boys, Justin Woodly from Robertson had the top time with a 17:47, and the winning Rams from Cuba were carried by a second place finish (18:10) from Osiris Putnam.