ALBUQUERQUE — The gold flashed very early, rather than late for local athletes in the Class 1A-3A New Mexico state track and field meet last weekend.
And along the way, the Mesa Vista boys ran a time of 8 minutes, 26.57 seconds to set a Class 2A state record in the 4×800-meter relay, just the second current mark for the school.
“It means lot,” Trojans coach Ben Sandoval Jr. said of the record, adding his dad, Ben Sandoval Sr., was the head coach in 2003 when Robert Velasquez set the still-standing record in the 400 dash. “I was getting texts and calls from people all weekend. People were coming up to me wherever I went. It’s a pretty big deal.
It was cool and it means a lot to the community,” he said. “It means a lot to the school and it means a lot to me personally and to my dad.”
The 4×800 turned out to be a special event as the McCurdy girls blazed through their 2A race in 10:51.71, winning a second consecutive gold in the event and sparking the Bobcats to the best local team finish as they came in with a fifth place tie with 32 points.
Dulce’s Jalen Johnson also tasted 2A gold, taking the triple jump, shaking off a leg injury to leap 41-feet, 11½-inches.
Although the Trojans entered the event with the top seed, they fell behind early as Oak Grove Academy went against traditional race strategy by putting its two best runners on the first and second legs.
But Sandoval cautioned his runners not to worry about that.
“I think they wanted to put the brakes on the rest for the field,” he said. “I think they thought everybody else would start running for second. But I was standing next to the finish line the whole race and I was telling them to stay calm, that they would come back to us.”
Then it was just up to the runners, Kenneth Gallegos, Andres Valdez, Jonathan Martinez and Ezequiel Nevarez, to do their thing.
The considerable early gap slowly dwindled, leaving anchor runner Nevarez in a good position to strike.
“I just stayed with him for the first 100 meters of the second lap,” he said. “Then I passed him, and I was going around him, and I was like, ‘I gotta have a good 250 (meter) kick.’ My coach has been talking about that all year, that if I have a good kick, we have a very good chance of winning. So I kicked it. And the rest is history. I came through and I finished strong.”
Opening leg runner Gallegos is the team’s only senior and he was still smarting from the Trojans’ loss in the state basketball final.
“I’ve been chasing a blue (first place) medal for all of my high school career,” he said. “So it means a lot to finally get that, especially after basketball. We had a little bit of a heartbreak there so this is a great way to end it off.”
As the veteran of the group, Gallegos tried to offer some guidance.
“I knew that the first and second legs were going to be a little high,” he said. “So I told everybody, ‘Even if you get the baton a little behind, just don’t give up and just trust it. Trust the process.’ I took off strong, and I tried to finish strong.”
For Valdez, the 4×800, which is the meet’s opening event, was the prelude for a big weekend, as he finished with four medals, including second in the 300 hurdles.
And for the McCurdy girls, their performance was a trend setter for the rest of the meet, coach Cecilia Brown said.
“I was really happy with the outcome,” she said. “They really showed up and did really well. Pretty tremendous to place fifth. We were right in it. A couple more points, we maybe could have contended for third, which is amazing.”
The relay runners of Kaylee Martinez, Avery Knight, Marisol Serna and Aubrey Cordova won the event in consecutive years.
“It was really exciting for the whole team to see that and use that for motivation that we can come here and compete and show who we are,” Brown said. “I love that the race is first thing Friday morning. It sets the tone for what we want to accomplish for the rest of the day.”
And this year was special because anchor runner and senior Cordova is graduating.
“It means so much because not only did I run with my girls, but we just won state,” she said. “We won state two years in a row, including with the same girls in cross country. So it’s just nice. I had to let my all out there for them.”
Doing it for the rest of the group was the point, Cordova said.
“They’re everything. I’ve been running with them since I was in fifth grade,” she said. “So we’ve been running together for years. That’s cool, so they’re everything to me. They’re not just teammates.”
McCurdy also had to rally from behind as Jemez Valley went out with a blistering opening leg. But opener Martinez said she did not get ruffled because she had confidence in her teammates.
“I just had to maintain the steady pace, and I didn’t want to burn out,” she said. “I just had to go fast. I think we just all learned to trust each other and we know what we can do. So we have confidence in each other at all times.”
In other noteworthy results, Knight, who was seeded sixth in the 800 put on a late burst to take second. And the medley relay, with Xochitl Madrid-Estrada and Alanni Boylan joining Martinez and Cordova, to finish third, while Serna took third in the 3200.
For Johnson, the meet was eerily similar to last year, when he injured a hamstring during Friday preliminaries, but still was able to gut out a gold on Saturday.
Last year, he was able to win the 110 hurdles, but this year it was the triple jump.
“I think the reason I pulled my hamstring again, for the 400, I ran a (personal record) and I didn’t give my legs enough times to rest,” he said. “Then I tried to run the 200. That was a little unfortunate.”
Saturday he took precautions with extra stretching and KT-tape wrap but he just couldn’t take it all the way and only managed third in the hurdles.
“When I look back upon it, I could have gone first again,” he said. “I could have gone back-to-back.”
When he went back for the triple jump, it did seem to improve slightly.
“The cool thing, during the triple jump, my jumps just kept getting better,” Johnson said. “Usually I get in one good jump and then they go down from there. But my best jump was my last jump during finals. I was two inches off my PR.”
Still, it was something of a disappointing day, said Johnson, a senior.
“I would say more on the bittersweet side for me because I don’t have another year to do it again,” he said.