In what qualifies as a bit of a novelty for cross country runners in New Mexico, competitors actually had to deal with some water at a couple of meets last fall. Contributed photo.
Sometimes, you can learn something from a good, long look into the rear-view mirror. On that premise, let's delve into the development of last year's New Mexico boys cross country season (girls will get their turn shortly).
For the state's strongest programs, the season got underway, as it traditionally does, at the UNM Lobo Invite at the storied north golf course on the campus of the University of New Mexico.
To the surprise of many, I suspect, Cleveland broke up a long-standing domination of the event by the Albuquerque Academy Chargers. It wasn't yet total domination, but it was definitely an indicator of things to come.
We already knew about Luis Martinez coming into the meet, but Kenny Henry showed here that he had developed the nucleus of a very good team to support Martinez's efforts. No doubt, Matt Smith and Aaron Flores gained a lot of confidence in this meet that would pay lasting dividends throughout the rest of the season. If not before this event, then certainly in the wake of this event, Cleveland began to sense the possibilities before them as a team.
And so, cross country in the Land of Enchantment would be different in 2011 than it had been for several years. There were few surprises elsewhere in the top 10 at UNM, but Pojoaque, St. Michael's, Santa Fe Indian School, and Hope Christian each posted nice small-school performances at this highly competitive meet.
September was not prime time for the biggest meets in New Mexico, but some New Mexico schools did travel out of state and fared mostly very nicely as payback for their efforts.
Albuquerque Academy took a third and Rio Rancho a seventh at the largest cross country meet in the entire region--the Liberty Bell Invitational in Littleton, Colorado. AA has won this meet a couple times in years gone by, but Colorado powers Fort Collins and Fairview were simply too much for them on this occasion.
Los Alamos and Rio Rancho held their ground well in the sweepstakes race of the Desert Twilight meet in Arizona later in the month with 4th and 7th place team finishes, coming up just a bit short of the top teams from Arizona and a very good Mountain Brook (AL) team that had traveled a more than a fair piece to get to this meet.
Inside the state boundaries, Laguna Acoma was pounding the small schools wherever they went, including taking meets by big margins at Jemez Valley and their home meet. Onate made a nice run through the large southern schools, even capturing a meet title as far north as Belen. Cleveland continued to dominate wherever they went. And all the schools at Socorro had to be wondering what hit them when a double dose of Cleveland and Rio Rancho converged on the New Mexico Tech golf course. Los Alamos cleaned up nicely at the La Cueva Invitational, though they lost a course record to Jackson Thomas in the process.
Late in September, Albuquerque Academy took a one-point victory over Cleveland at their home invitational. They likely didn't realize it at the time, but that victory would mark the high water point of their season. If I've done my homework correctly, it was the only defeat Cleveland would suffer through their entire season (at least inside of New Mexico).
With the state meet looming on November 5, October became the month for teams to make their moves.
Laguna Acoma left no doubt about their positioning with another solid piece of domination at Zuni. Meanwhile, Shiprock captured a key meet title over SFIS and Pojoaque at the SFIS home invitational, giving us our first clear indication of how strong Shiprock would be down the stretch.
Albuquerque Academy turned aside all threats at their the Metro meet to win their 14th consecutive Metro meet title, but those threats didn't include Cleveland or Rio Rancho. In future years, it appears, the Albuquerque schools will be dealing with Cleveland and Rio Rancho at the Metro meet, making the stakes just a wee bit higher.
The Rio Rancho Jamboree came and went with little change in the order of things. Laguna Acoma ripped through the small school competition yet again. Also at Rio Rancho, we began to see the first strong hints of just how dominant Cleveland could be. The Storm wedged each of the top five into the top 20. Answers from the other schools were not forthcoming.
If you're looking for the meet that started to show cracks in AA's wall, Rio Rancho would be a nice candidate for that honor, if honor it is. AA placed nobody in the top 20 and endured an uncharacteristically large gap between 4 and 5. This didn't much resemble the team that had taken down Cleveland just two weeks earlier.
The next weekend featured a showdown of Los Alamos, AA, and Cleveland at the Los Alamos Golf Course. With home turf to defend and maybe a bit of an altitude advantage, Los Alamos was able to keep it close, 24-40, before succumbing to Cleveland. At this point, Cleveland had nothing left to prove before state. They had taken on all comers, 4A, 5A, or otherwise, and dispatched them all. Los Alamos had, however, completed a solid month of competition. Outside of dropping one to Cleveland at their home meet, the Hilltoppers finished October very short on disappointments.
Meanwhile in Albuquerque, La Cueva beat Rio Rancho on a tie-breaker, raising some concerns about whether the Rio Rancho team that had started the season so strong had enough gas in the tank to finish the season at full tilt.
3A power Shiprock took it to the larger schools in the northwest corner of the state at the Kirtland Invitational, beating Piedra Vista by a narrow margin of four points and utterly dominating the rest.
In a smaller school meet hosted in Grants, Laguna Acoma, even though only a 2A school, went onto Grants home circuit and shut down a Grants team that had been enjoying a solid season.
Two weeks later, it all settled on the return trip to Rio Rancho. Laguna Acoma accomplished the only thing they hadn't done all season by taking control of the 2A state meet, a strong effort from Pecos notwithstanding.
In 3A, Pojoaque found some answers, and just enough to hold off a determined bid from the Shiprock Chieftains, with Zuni close behind both of them.
4A may have produced the most stunning result of all. By the time the state meet came around, most people were giving pretty good odds on Los Alamos running away with it all, but the margin by which they ran away with it was nothing short of stunning. With the Hilltoppers putting all of their top five in the top ten, there was not so much as a whimper of resistance. AA was far back in second, 21-75. The season did not start this way for AA, but there was something of an unraveling at the end (There would, however, be some meaningful mending of that unraveling two weeks later at NXR-SW.).
The margin in 5A was nearly as large, with Cleveland beating a La Cueva team that had gotten much better during the course of the season, 33-78. Still, there was nothing especially surprising about that margin. Cleveland had been crushing people almost all season long, and by margins that seemed to grow almost every week. Rio Rancho, an early season favorite and team that kept it close with Cleveland a time or two early in the season, took third, two points behind La Cueva.