Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Only county teams compete at David Allen Invite

BHS girls, LL boys win; Jaguars are 2nd

Jason W. Brooks News-Bulletin Staff Writer; jbrooks@news-bulletin.com

Los Lunas It was guaranteed Valencia County athletes and teams would finish in first place at Saturday's David Allen Invite, because Belen, Los Lunas and Valencia were the only programs to attend.

After Manzano dropped out of the Allen Invite late last week, that made Los Lunas High School the host of a triangular meet between county schools. The BHS, LLHS and VHS teams made the most of the occasion, trying to improve their times and learning important lessons in a relatively familiar environment.

Both the Belen girls and the Los Lunas boys took first place in their three-team fields. The Lady Eagles and the Tigers both won the meet last year, though the competition was tougher then.

The Los Lunas girls were a close second to Belen, finishing with 34 points to the Lady Eagles' 32, while the Valencia girls were third. The Jaguar boys and BHS both had 61 points, but Valencia won a tiebreaker based on the finish of both teams' sixth-best runners, making the Eagles third.

Aleona Reyes of BHS easily won the girls race, which had only 18 finishers, with a time of 19:57.73. Jonah Ruybalid, one of seven male Los Lunas runners to place in the top eight, won the boys race in 16:51.49.

Friday, both Valencia and LLHS head to Bullhead Park in southeast Albuquerque for the Highland Invite. The meet is set for 3:30 p.m. Belen heads to the Santa Fe Indian School Invite on Saturday for a 9 a.m. start.

Los Lunas

"Both our boys and our girls were consistent with what we should be doing on our home course," said LLHS coach Larry Padilla, whose girls team was led by eighth-grader Kendra Lente. "I was especially pleased with how Mateja (Rye) ran."

Lente was second behind Belen's Reyes.

Rye was fifth in the girls race and was the third-best finisher for the Lady Tigers behind Lente and another eighth-grader, Eliyah Lucero, who was fourth overall. Tori Rye and Allison Casias, ninth and 14th respectively, rounded out the girls team score. Kelly Chavez and yet another eighth-grader, Akiko Herrera, also finished for LLHS.

Lente said competing in races with Reyes, like the Lady Tigers have at three meets so far this season, helps with confidence. "I try to stay a good (close) distance behind her, because it helps me to know I can see her and watch her," said Lente. "All the Belen girls help push us since they're some of the fastest runners around."

The LLHS boys nearly had a perfect score, and Patrick Lueras ran with Ruybalid most of the way to finish second by about 22 seconds. Justin Lueras was third in the boys race, William Kessler was fourth, Andrew Lovato was sixth, Brandon Morgan seventh and Marty Gomez eighth.

Padilla said he's not sure exactly which teams will be at the Highland Invite, but he's looking forward to seeing what the host Hornets have. Highland sometimes has soccer players who are strong runners but don't run at every meet, he said.

Belen

The sour way of looking at the Belen girls' performance is to say the Lady Eagles barely hung on to place first at a meet they normally would have had no trouble winning. The positive side is that their depth showed, as BHS had the minimum five individual places for a team score after a pair of illnesses slimmed the number of finishers, and still beat a 5A team.

Tessa Hendren and her sister, Tayler Hendren, both have been ill recently, and neither was able to finish Saturday's girls race. Reyes' meet-winning performance, her third in as many weeks, was followed by teammate Cheyanne Boggus' third-place effort.

Shaylene Chavez was sixth overall; Macy Baca was fourth and Shelby Snow was 12th. Laycee Smith didn't compete at all due to illness, according to BHS coach Joseph E. Garcia.

"We need to get everyone healthy," said Garcia.

The BHS boys' involvement in a tiebreaker gave Garcia a chance to emphasize to his young Eagle team the importance of all seven runners.

"It doesn't matter if a runner's first or seventh, or anywhere in between," said Garcia. "I'm real proud of how they pushed themselves. From meet to meet, they're learning."

Juan Sanchez was the fastest Eagle, placing fifth and preventing Los Lunas from logging a perfect score. Jeremy Smith was 11th, Bryan Dunaway 13th, Chance Cannon 15th, and Eric Henson, Donovan Bratcher and Jacob Armijo were 18th, 19th and 20th.

Nathan Edwell didn't compete due to an injury.

Garcia said he's looking forward to the Santa Fe Indian School meet because it's another look at the Los Alamos girls team, a primary challenger to the Lady Eagles' hopes of repeating as Class 4A state champions. Los Alamos was fourth and Belen eighth among girls teams at the UNM Invite on Sept. 5.

"You can't tell much on the first week of the season," he said.

Valencia

Marcus Tafoya's 17th-place time of 21:36.11 might have been the slowest on his team and three spots from last place, but it was good enough to give the VHS boys a tiebreaker over Belen for a second-place finish.

Mike Bonilla was ninth overall, followed by teammates Justin Driskell (10th); Raymond Sandoval (12th), Chris Galemore (14th), Marc Gutierrez (15th) and Tafoya.

"The pack time improved a lot," said Lynette Padilla, the VHS coach.

Padilla also said the improvement of Driskell was a major factor in beating Belen.

The Lady Jaguars were a distant third, but eighth-grader Grace Vickers was seventh overall. Tracie Higdon was eighth, her sister Stacie was 11th, Nisa Rascon was 13th, Jordan Koontz was 17th and Maria Rascon was 18th.

Padilla said although she knows Belen and Los Lunas would probably rather run in tougher meets against lots of competition, the Allen Invite was a good confidence builder for VHS because every runner received a ribbon.

"We're just trying to get the kids to race smart, and to improve pack times," she said. "These next two weeks of practice are probably going to be the most intense of the season."

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