Week in Review: March 11 - 17

Bernalillo Invitational

Los Alamos has the pieces of two very good teams coming together, and the Hilltoppers showed a little of that at the Bernalillo Inviational. Hope Christian's girls gave Los Alamos a bit of a contest for the girls title, but the boys were simply out of sight of the rest of the field. 

Joshua Roybal of Santa Fe had a nice 10.98 100 to claim the title in that event. Since Mr. Roybal does not show up elsewhere in the results, I'm guessing he spent the rest of his day leading the Santa Fe 4x100 and 4x200 teams to titles.

Jonathan Millar of Hope Christian continues his very nice season of throwing things. Thus far, his repertoire does not include long, pointed objects, but when you throw 50-4 in the shot and 148-8 in the discus, who needs a javelin?

Speaking of throwing things, Chase Ealey of Los Alamos is enjoying another stellar season. Her 43-9 in the shot and 11.92 in the 100 were both season-best marks. Unlike Millar, she does throw the long, pointy implement, and her mark of 108-0 was good enough to win the meet, but not the kind of mark that's going to take her to the top of the state rankings yet.

Hope Christian's Anna Duvall had a first in the high jump (4-10) and pole vault (10-0), but it's probably the second in the 100 hurdles (courtesy of Maya McGowan of St. Michael's) that's eating her lunch.

And, finally, Laura Wendleberger of Los Alamos had a nice day, winning the 300 hurdles in 47.56 and the long jump at 16-6.

Dexter Demon Relays

Score this one as a big weekend for the Jal girls and the Dexter boys. 

Jal's Malik Anderson demonstrated some nice speed, running away with both the 100 and 200. Teammate Sasha Navarrette did much the same with the girls' long jump and triple jump.

For Dexter, the formula for success was one of scoring points in several events. Individual event winners for the Demons included David Vasquez (300 hurdles), David Lopez (high jump), and Bryant Jimenez (triple jump).

Mike Tooley Relays

Silver made the trip to T or C and encountered a familiar problem. They had more luggage to take home than what they brought. Two team trophies will do that to you.

Silver seems unusually adept at spreading things around. For all the events they won, only Michelle Allen won multiple events--the javelin, the 200, and the 400. And that, folks, is an unusual combination of proficiencies. Speed is important in the javelin, but we usually think of javelin speed as shorter burst kind of speed. Right now, however, the 2/4/javelin thing seems to be working just fine for Ms. Allen.

Silver's Joseph Morales had a nice early-season time of 2:04.78 to win the 800.

Lordsburg's Wendell Hayes won the 100 and 200, but not without serious threats from Armando Montano of Deming and Kalama Davis of Ruidoso. Small school sprints are heating up.

Rolla Buck/White Sands Invitational

The host school's girls only managed a third behind two high-powered El Paso schools, but the Alamagordo boys came out on top of their own early-season invitational.

I'm staring in a bit of disbelief at the 110 hurdle times, 13.78 for Raymond Sottak of El Paso Chaparral and 14.00 for Alamogordo's Mac Shoaf. I promise you could feel the breeze as those two guys passed by. If those are FAT times, that sort of performance is off the charts at this point in the season. Somebody please fill me in on the timing at this meet (thank you). Another big concern with times in this league is wind reading. No wind readings accompanied the meet's marks, so it's safe to assume there were no wind gauges in use. Without FAT and without a wind gauge, marks like these won't gather much national attention, but it's still worth paying attention to what Sottak and Shoaf are up to. Stay tuned. We very much hope we get to see Shoaf's times with a camera and a wind gauge sometime this season. It could be special!

Carlsbad's Kendall Munoz and Brittni Jo Smith are going to create some problems for the competition in the javelin as the season wears on. It's nice to have teammates pushing each other like that.

Artesia's Brittany Burgess cleared 10-6 in the pole vault, making her something of a favorite in that event as you start looking down the road toward state.

We've talked about Ricky Milks and the 100 meters earlier this season, but how about a 22.18 in the 200? That, too, ranks as a very nice time.

Round Valley Invitational

Sure, it's in Arizona, but Shiprock was there, so we post the results if we get them. Happily, Arizona is a MileSplit state, so we get lots of results out of AZ. Herbert Beyale seems to have had the Chieftains' best marks, competing in the 800 and 1600.