Big and small schools excel at Los Lunas Invite

LOS LUNAS — Although the final sprint toward the New Mexico State Cross Country Championships is still about three weeks away, Saturday’s Los Lunas Invitational gave coaches a chance to assess where they stand and to size up the competition.

“This is a great meet,” said Fernando Sisneros, Belen coach. “There are a lot of teams here, 5A all the way down to some really small schools.”

About 230 competitors from 23 schools were in the field, from 5A to 2A. Larry Padilla, meet director and LLHS coach, said that in cross country the size of the school “really doesn’t matter — we’ve got good runners in any division.”

LLHS sophomore Ainsley McKay described the competition as “tough.” So was the five-kilometer course.

“Our course was absolutely brutal,” McKay said, pointing to a particularly challenging downhill portion. “You’re tired already. You have to completely loosen up.” Or? “You’ll either twist your ankle or tumble down the hill.”

Because of construction at the stadium, where the course starts and ends, Padilla had to make some adjustments.

“I don’t think in the 36 years I’ve been doing this we’ve ever had the same exact course two years in a row,” said Padilla, recalling an alteration he once had to make hours before the meet. “They had put up a chain link fence the night before. I just got my cutters and cut it down. I got in trouble the next Monday.”

Despite having one runner unavailable and another who had to drop out of the race, the Belen girls (110 points) finished a solid third behind Los Alamos (70) and Organ Mountain (102). Los Lunas (211) was 10th out of 12 teams.

Individually, Moriarty’s Carmen Dorsey-Spitz (18:58.3) was first. Belen’s Lisette Sanchez (20:33.2) finished fourth. The top LLHS runner was McKay (22:44.9) at 13. Angelina Batista was the lone Valencia competitor.

In the boys’ competition, Los Lunas (71) was runner-up to Organ Mountain (24), while Taos was third (76). Belen came in 12 (296) in the field of 15 teams.

Top individual honors went to Corbin Coombs, Organ Mountain, in a time of 15:43.9. Issac Gonzales (17:09.7) of LLHS was fifth, with teammate James Kilcullen in 10th place. Kyle Glodt (19:30.4) led BHS, finishing 36th. Freshman Vincent Batista (22:26.1,) was the fastest runner for Valencia.

The state championship is Nov. 9, at Albuquerque Academy.