Pojoaque boys and girls finish third at Moriarty Invitational
Sometimes, a little friendly competition never hurts.
In Santiago Romero’s case, the Pojoaque Valley High School junior runner had some positive words for Moriarty High School’s Ovideo Lujan while the two battled neck-and-neck throughout the Moriarty Cross Country Invitational on Sept. 16 at Edgewood Middle School.
A little past the first mile, Lujan said Romero told him to “keep up with me” as Romero passed by him.
“He said it in a good way, you know?” Lujan said. “That was pretty much it, and I tried keeping up with him, but I eventually started cramping up and dying out.”
Romero finished in third place with a time of 18 minutes, 5.46 seconds, which was good enough to beat Lujan, who crossed the finish line in fourth in 18:11.54.
“We’re from different schools, but we encourage each other and try to get each other to build each other up,” Romero said. “It’s nice to partner out there and try to get each other running faster.”
Romero’s third place individual result mirrored Pojoaque’s team result, as the Elk’s took third with 65 points.
Albuquerque Academy finished two points better at 63, and Los Lunas High School had four runners finish in the top eight to win the Invitational with 31 points.
Dylan Romero was the second Pojoaque runner to finish, and he came in ninth place at 18.42.77. Joseph Gutierrez (15th), Lucas Tiede (19th) and Zach Hall (21st) rounded out the scoring for the Elks.
“For the boys, you can’t say much; they did a good job,” Pojoaque head coach Allan Lockridge said. “After the first two, we had a pack of four boys — a little far back — but that was OK. More than a couple of the guys are still learning how to run on varsity and in a pack, and we’re still not in shape.”
Most encouraging for the Elks was how they were able to easily outscore District 2-4A opponents Española Valley High School (113) and the hosts from Moriarty (115).
The Middle School course in Edgewood will be the same course to host the 2-4A championship meet in November.
“This is what we wanted to do and this is why we’re here,” Lockridge said. “The experience of knowing what we will be running again, now we can train for that as we get closer toward that.”
The Pojoaque girls matched the boys team with a third-place finish of their own, as they scored 70 points.
Los Lunas just edged out Pojoaque for second with 68 points, and Albuquerque Academy dominated the field by placing the first, second, third, fifth and eighth runners to post the low, winning score of 19.
Senior Mia Vigil led the way for the Elkettes in 22:37.72 for sixth place.
Lockridge said the highlight of the day for the girls was watching his crop of eighth-graders and freshmen compete and grow, and he noted specifically the effort of Marisa Martinez.
The eighth-grader was able to edge out her sister, senior Michaela Martinez — who was battling a bloody nose — by almost four seconds for 14th place.
“She’s just got the guts to do great things,” Lockridge said about Marisa.
Pojoaque’s score of 70 was rounded out by freshmen Arrisa Herrod (19th) and Ayla Garcia (21st).
Meet notes
Española’s Juan Branch ran his way to his second top ten finish in two weeks by taking sixth place in 18:34.77; just one second slower than a week prior in Peñasco.
The Sundevils edged out Moriarty by 40 points in Peñasco, but this week’s two-point differential shows both teams could be about even when it comes to competing for the third and final automatic state berth at the District championship meet.
For the Lady Sundevils, Emily Chavez posted her second consecutive 13th-place finish, and she improved her time from Peñasco by 21 seconds by running a 23:49.58.
The Española girls placed fifth out of five teams with 120 points.
Pojoaque will run at the Laguna Acoma Invite at 3 p.m., Friday in Casa Blanca, while Española will take a week off before competing in the Capital City Invite in Santa Fe on Sept. 28.