Throughout the week before their distance runs, McCurdy’s runners were focusing on sprints.
Teammates had even made fun of freshman Marisol Serna’s closings.
“They were giving me such a hard time about my kick,” Serna said. “That’s sometimes when people catch me. And it worked.”
The sprinting paid off, as McCurdy’s 4×800 team won first place at the state track championships in Albuquerque on May 10-11. Freshman Marisol Serna won first place in the 3200 meters as well, and other runners did well in their individual races.
“I don’t think it’s hit us yet,” said junior Aubrey Cordova after Serna’s race.
“I knew the girls had the endurance, I knew they had the heart,” McCurdy coach Cecilia Brown said. “They just needed to work on their kick. So, we did a lot of sprinting this week. I feel like we really saw the difference with that. Because, they all had phenomenal kicks.”
Kaylee Martinez ran well in the opening split of her relay, though she started in the back of the pack, setting the Bobcats up around sixth place. Serna grabbed the baton and quickly passed multiple runners, putting McCurdy in third by the time she was done, though still with a deficit behind the top teams.
Avery Knight passed Hagerman, who had the best qualifying time, and finished her leg in second place behind Academy for Technology and the Classics, as Española local Anika Calvert took over for the Phoenix. Cordova, McCurdy’s elder stateswoman, ran the final leg.
Cordova started only a few seconds behind Calvert. She made the pass halfway through the first lap. With Calvert close behind, Cordova widened her lead down the final 200 meters and took home the victory.
As Cordova crossed the finish line, they all started crying. Some of them had already been crying, knowing what would come.
“Once Avery gave the baton to Aubrey, me and Mari (Serna) just started crying,” Serna said. “At the time I didn’t know if we were going to win, but it was still, just like, I don’t know.”
The McCurdy relay team, with a junior, a sophomore and two freshmen, are just as close off the track. Brown calls it an “echo” the way they can often talk over and for each other, finish each other’s sentences, and go “yeah” after anything said. But it also helps to have everyone “on the same page.”
“I’d rather not do this with anybody else,” Serna said.
Their youth, Brown said, allows them to learn faster.
“They’re little sponges,” Brown said. “They just absorb, and they don’t think too much. They just go out and do. These girls just want to go out and run, and that’s all they have on their mind.”
Freshman cross country teammate Isabella Archuleta played tennis in the spring instead of running track, but was able to watch Serna’s race.
McCurdy was also fueled by the end of cross-country season, when Cordova’s injury and Serna’s fall 200 meters from the finish took them off the team standings, when they could have been third or better.
The next day, Serna came out on top again. And again it was her closing speed that got the win.
Calvert led the race almost the whole way. Serna spent much of the race in third. Peñasco’s Rochelle Lopez, the defending champion in the event who has battled a knee injury since cross country season, was in second, but ultimately fell off and finished fourth, 21 seconds off the lead.
Serna passed Lopez on the sixth lap, and was neck-and-neck with Calvert after the seventh. In the final lap, Serna made her move, then slammed the door. She won by seven seconds.
“I was like — I just need to go,” Serna said. “I’m going to give it all, I have nothing to lose. I just gave it all my last 400. And it worked.”
Serna had cut nearly 40 seconds off her previous personal best.
Knight placed third in the 800-meter race, showing off her own kick. She dashed to the finish line to pass fourth place by 0.08 seconds.
Cordova’s sprinting paid off with a sixth-place finish in the 200 meters.
And in the girls 1600 meters, Serna finished fifth and Knight sixth.
The Bobcats opted to scratch their sprint medley relay, with the same four runners, with Brown deciding to focus on the other events as their qualifying time was not as strong. After the 4×800, their runners were entirely spent.
Also for McCurdy, Jeremaya Roybal finished in third in the boys 200 meters with a time of 23.43 seconds. The sprint medley team with Emelio Espinoza, Roybal, Lucas Martinez and Justin Knight placed fifth.