Only a freshman last fall, Trevor Armijo is already a defending state champion. Photo by Alan Versaw.
Last November, Cimarron won the inaugural 1A boys state title by 42 points. The magnitude of that drubbing is obscured a little until you realize that there were only nine scoring teams in the race. In short, Cimarron owned the race. The only team Cimarron did not beat at every scoring position was Jemez Valley. Jemez's Trevor Armijo won the race and beat Cimarron by a single point at the first scoring position.
2012 1A Boys State Meet Results
2012 1A Boys State Coverage Article
#2 Jacob Subratie, #5 Henry Sime, #9 Thomas Gallegos, and #13 Matthew Niemic are back, meaning that there doesn't figure to be much of a drop-off for 2013. If you're a 1A team meaning to take home the blue trophy, figure it's more a matter of you catching up to Cimarron than them coming back to you. A state track title this spring did nothing to slow the Cimarron momentum.
That's not to say other teams are without hope, only that it's a tall order in front of them. Tse Ye Gai and Jemez Valley were closest to Cimarron last year.
Tse Ye Gai figures to be competitive again this year as the top three of Demar Whitehorse, Keanu Largo, and Cameron Candelario should all be back.
Jemez Valley returns state titleist Trevor Armijo, and several more from last year's team, and so they, too, figure to be competitive once again.
What you have to take account, however, when assessing the chances of Tse Ye Gai and Jemez Valley is that the Cimarron scoring five averaged 19:21, whereas Tse Ye Gai and Jemez Valley averaged 20:06 and 20:14. That's a lot of ground to make up. It's not an impossible amount of ground to make up when you have a good number of returning individuals, but it is difficult under any circumstances.
Quemado and Coronado are two more teams with outside hopes of being in the hunt this fall. Of note, Quemado returns last year's #3 finisher at state, Danny Yazzie. Yazzie validated his cross country season with a nice track season in the spring, takind second at state in the 1600 behind Henry Sime.
What we can all hope for is an ongoing growing of the 1A ranks. Both in terms of individuals and in terms of teams, the ranks were a little thin at last fall's state meet. And the ranks for the boys were decidedly better than they were for the girls. So, here's to hoping that this thing called 1A cross country catches on.