With official practice for the outdoor season set to begin, the New Mexico indoor season came to a screeching halt with Saturday night's Cherry and Silver All-Comer.
The biggest marks of the evening would appear to be a 16-6 pole vault by Paulo Benavides (El Paso Franklin) and a 17-9.75 long jump by Akeisha Ayanniyi, but there were other interesting little hints of what's to come to be found in other events.
Anyanniyi made it a triple crown with wins in the 60 and 200 as well.
Shannon Maloney (contributed photo, left) out of Durango, Colorado, dropped a 5:18 mile to beat Noel Prandoni by four seconds. Maloney doubled back to win the 800 in 2:24. Unless they show up at Great Southwest, however, this figures to be the last time Prandoni and Maloney square off for some time.
A significant chunk of the Los Alamos cross country team was a few places back in the mile, running with their accustomed pack time. Morgan Diefendorf's 400 time is shaping up to be very competitive in this spring's 3A ranks. She doesn't figure to go straight to the top, but she should be making it a whole lot more interesting than we were thinking about eight months ago.
Jordan Byrd kept the 60 meter field behind him once again. Somebody is getting one very fast freshman this fall.
Frankie Scorfina held off Timberlin Henderson to win this week's mile. Aaron Valenzuela has to be starting to wonder exactly what it takes to win one of these. Valenzuela led a massive pack of guys in the 4:40s, which would seem to be where everyone's conditioning is at the moment.
Justin Kerstetter just missed his second title in as many week's when Cal Ballou beat him to the finish line of the 800 meters.
Matt Jackson brought home a big win in the 60 hurdles. Many of last year's 110 hurdlers who were ahead of Jackson have graduated, and Jackson's indoor efforts suggest he may have gained a step or two on the rest of the field. We shouldn't be too deep into the outdoor season before we know more about that.