After having no coach, no uniforms and only competing in one meet, so far, this season, the Española Valley High School track and field team was just happy to be back on a normal schedule.
They finished seventh out of 10 teams at the Capital High School Jaguar Invitational Track Meet on April 7, but head coach Miguel Medina was quick to say that it is not all about results, right now.
“It’s tough when these kids were without a coach and doing nothing but practicing,” he said. “We’re also a very young team, so it’s going to take some time to get things going.”
Former coach, Julio Trujillo, decided right before the season started, that he would not return.
This left the team with no coach, or no track uniforms, which Medina had to order, when he decided to take the job.
“It’s been tough, but this is one of the programs that is very young and I will have to work on building it,” he said. “A lot of our good athletes play tennis, baseball or AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) basketball during the spring, so I will have to work on recruiting some people in the next few years.”
Despite his future interests, there were several performances, Saturday, of which he was proud.
It all started early in the field events, where Nicolas Martinez placed first in the shot put, with a distance of 43-feet, 3-inches. He was able to win the event, after finishing second in the meet last year, with a mark of 41-feet, 1.5-inches.
During this portion of the meet, the temperature was still in the low 40s.
“I was expecting to win, but the cold weather kind of messed with my head and my legs, I just couldn’t get any power out of them,” Martinez said.
He was also looking to qualify for the state track meet, but the distance required would have been 45-feet, 6-inches.
“Today was just okay, because last meet, I threw a 44-9,” Martinez said.
The girls discus throw was also a success, as Mia Jaquez placed second, with a distance of 72 feet. It was a full 20 feet behind the winner, Sydney Halford, from St. Michael’s High School.
In the running events, the Sundevils saw their biggest contributions come from the boys 4×200-meter relay (Michael Heydorn, Jose Perez, Deantrea Curtis and Jesus Moreno). The unit finished first in heat number one, and fourth overall, with a time of 1 minute, 40.61 seconds.
“We just try to run the best time we can, that’s it,” Curtis said. “I saw that we were in first place coming up on me, so I just had to keep it up.”
Later in the meet, Curtis, Heydorn, Moreno and Daylon Garcia posted the team’s best finish in the running events (second place), in the boys 1600-meter sprint medley. They clocked a time of 4 minutes, 4.94 seconds, just a hair behind St. Michael’s first place time of 4:03.94.
“It just feels good to finally be out here,” Curtis said. “We just had to practice for weeks without going to a meet, but from here on out, we’re going to make the best of it.”