NM Week in Review: March 24 - March 30

 

As spring break fades into the background, the count of meets begins to climb again. Here's a quick report on the meets we heard from in the past week.

Aztec Icebreaker Invitational

On-Site Coverage

I'm not sure how much actual ice they had to break to get this meet going, but it is true that things haven't been quite as warm yet this spring as they were last spring. You wouldn't know that by looking at some of the performances from this meet, however.

Piedra Vista impressed at this meet. The Panthers are on a roll this spring and definitely emerging as one of the state's best 4A teams. Wherever you look, PV seems to have answers. Sprints? The answers would be Zach Johnson, Wyatt Hardy, Ty Murphy, Zhianna Flores, and Cassandra Crowell. Distance? The answers would be Harrison Fleming, Timberlin Henderson, Brandon Levi, and Kerstin Ortiz. Throws? Beau Clafton, Troy Young, and Kaleigh Graham. You get the picture.

And it's not just PV. Truth be told, track is doing pretty well in San Juan County at the moment. Bloomfield bypassed this meet, but Farmington and Aztec both had some nice results as well.

Canutillo Eagle Relays

Deming was New Mexico's designated emissary to Texas this weekend. The Wildcats ran into all the competition they could have hoped for at this meet. But, it is great competition that is the first stimulus toward greater performance. Few who do not see the need to get better ever realize the kind of gains they are capable of. 

Ismail Garrett led the Wildcat entries with a second in the 200 and a third in the 100. 

Cleveland Storm Relays

Nick Martinez provided a nice little recap of this meet in the article linked below. Cleveland, of course, dominated the competition at this meet, but you can also find some clues about the smaller classifications by digging a little deeper into the results. Los Alamos topped the 4A (and smaller) girls programs at this meet, but Albuquerque Academy got the best of boys programs from classifications 4A and down. Hope Christian held their own well against much larger schools, and particularly on the boys side of things.

On-Site Coverage

Cleveland Dominates Own Relays Meet

New Mexico’s track & field season is in full throttle, after daylight savings finally brought a precious extra hour of sunlight for hectic practices, the track & field season has shifted from preparatory phase into the competitive phase

Girls Highlights

Boys Highlights

Gallup Invitational

Just about everybody from the Gallup area showed up for this one. And where else would they have gone? The show was in Gallup.

Though Gallup was once the scourge of western New Mexico, destroying rivals almost on sight, Miyamura has slowly begun the displace Gallup as the reigning power of McKinley County and points nearby. The Patriots got big peformances from Cara DePauli, AJ Starkovich, Niles Thomas, Amy Rosebrough, and their girls relays. Of particular note here is the fact that Niles Thomas, only a freshman, took the 1600 meet title in 4:38.22.

Meet Results

Boys Highlights

Golden Spike Classic

Most of Santa Fe showed up for this one. And, while the Santa Fe girls were able to hold ground on their own oval, it was the St. Michael's squad that went home with top honors among the boys. 

The victory for St. Michael's was rooted deeply in field events. The Horsemen picked up only a few points on the track but simply had no peers in the field events. Sal Martinez picked up wins in the high jump and pole vault. The brothers Hochanadel dominated the shot and discus. Altogether, St. Michael's took seven firsts and three seconds in the field events. That was enough to go home as the top team. An astonishing total of 94 of their 119 points were tallied in field events. 

Maddie Wiebe picked up three individual event titles to lead the way for Santa Fe, but the Demons scored points across the entire spectrum of events to snare the team title.

A quick finger to the wind on performance of the meet suggests that honor belongs to Mathias Hochanadel for his 141-1 effort in the discus.

Pojoaque Valley Invitational

Construction work has temporarily done in most of the field event venues at Pojoaque Valley. Consequently, this meet was run without the long jump, triple jump, shot put, and discus. In the track event-heavy meet that emerged from the situation, Santa Fe and Taos took top honors. 

The best days seemed to belong to the distance runners, with Alonzo Chavez of Mora sweeping the 800, 1600, and 3200 among the boys and Noel Prandoni of Santa Fe claiming a 1600/3200 double among the girls. Chavez's 4:33 1600 at least gets consideration for the top performance of the meet.

Valencia County Relays

A whole lot more than just Valencia County showed up for this meet. 

Valencia's Josh Burbank was back to his dominating ways at this one, winning the 100 and 200, but he was just one on a list of multiple event winners. Other multiple winners among the boys included Moriarty's Jonathan Myrick in both hurdles and the pole vault, Belen's Tyler Valdez in the 800 and 1600 (4:37), 

Between Austin Anaya and Myrick (now well down into the 15s in the 110 hurdles), Moriarty figures to be making some noise at the 4A state meet. Anaya ran 10:04 for the 3200, enough to keep himself on everyone's radar screen clean across the state.

In girls action, Alexis Lafave was actually beaten in the 100 by Cera Chavez (who also won the 200). The good news here is that Chavez wears the same uniform as Lafave. If you're going to have someone come up on your shoulder, you should always be glad when that someone is a teammate and not someone from another school. 

Kaitlynn Craig made a convincing sweep of the girls hurdle races and also took the long jump at 16-9 for Valencia. Craig figures to be a difference maker at state in another six weeks or so. 

Meet Results

Girls Highlights

Boys Highlights