Launching into record books
Taos boys win team title for fourth year in a row
OALBUQUERQUE n a day when Northern New Mexico celebrated a state record holder and a four-peat while watching a heart-breaking finish, Saturday belonged to “The Closer.”
It is the nickname bestowed upon Taos senior distance runner Simon Mount because it always seemed the Tigers needed him to close out trackand-field meet team titles throughout the regular season. So, as the clinching moment arose Saturday for Taos to secure its fourth straight Class 4A state title, it coincided with the 3,200 meters. Everybody on the Taos sidelines knew what it meant. Break out “The Closer.” Mount didn’t disappoint, finishing in fifth place and the two points he earned officially handed the Tigers another blue trophy. And the legend grew.
“Who, The Closer?” Taos head coach Benny Mitchell said when asked about Mount’s performance. “That’s what they call him. We needed two points, and he came in just to seal it.”
Taos finished the meet with a win in the 1,600 relay to cap its four-peat in the Class 4A/5A/6A State Track and Field Championships at Great Friends of UNM Track Complex with 67 points in the 4A division, 17 more than runnerup Portales. The Tigers also bagged the high-point scoring title for the meet with sophomore Jonah Vigil and his 26 points securing that.
Taos boys were alone in bringing home a championship, but they weren’t alone in taking some hardware for the
bus ride home. The Los Alamos girls were two steps away from winning their first 5A title in five years, but Alamogordo anchor runner Justyse Martin stalked, then tracked down the Lady Hilltoppers’ Leah Wolfsberg at the line in the meet’s final race, the 1,600 relay. Martin reached the line a step before Wolfsberg, and that change in position — second for Alamogordo, third for Los Alamos — was enough for the Lady Tigers to overtake Los Alamos for the title by a 68-67½ count.
St. Michael’s finished in second place in the 4A girls meet, thanks in part to the state-record performance by senior Jocelyn Fernandez. In her last crack at winning the javelin title she secured as a freshman in 2014, Fernandez did more than win it — she threw a personal-best 133 feet, 10 inches in her first throw. Then on her first throw of the finals, she set the state record with a 140-1 that was almost 22 feet better than runnerup Daniella Villanueva of Portales.
Fernandez’s dominance was so impressive that Moriarty’s Carissa Gibbard told her as they waited to walk toward the awards podium, “You’re a beast. That was insane.”
The last two Mays saw Fernandez come frustratingly close to winning the javelin, which she lost by a combined 13 inches to Ruidoso’s Andi Harrelson. That distance was the difference between a one- and a four-time javelin champion, and that motivated Fernandez to make sure she didn’t suffer another heartbreak.
Instead, her heart soared as she watched her record-setting throw nestle into the ground.
“It was probably the smoothest throw I ever had,” Fernandez said. “I thought I threw less, I thought it was like, 135. When everyone started screaming, I was like, ‘Ok that must have been good.’ ”
While Fernandez claimed glory, the Lady Horsemen wanted to share in that with a team title — the first for the program since 2007. What St. Michael’s didn’t expect was an Albuquerque Hope Christian squad that scored points in just about every meet. Even though the Lady Huskies failed to win an event, they used the quantity of top-six finishes to outpoint St. Michael’s by a 62-58 count to repeat as state champions.
“It’s always tough not to get that blue trophy, but I thought our kids came out and competed really hard today,” Lady Horsemen head coach Joey Fernandez said. “Hope, they just had a better day. They scored some points in some events they weren’t expected to, and the rest is history. We gave it a run, an I am proud of how the girls competed today.”
While the Lady Horsemen came up short, Saturday evening was a breath of fresh air for the Tigers after a worrisome Friday after the 800 relay team dropped the baton and failed to qualify. That was 10 potential points they could have scored in that event, and it opened the door for the Rams. But a pleasant surprise emerged in the form of Alejandro Salazar, who qualified for the triple jump at the district meet. The junior kept the momentum going by winning the event with a jump of 43-4¾, which was more than 2 feet better than his 41-1 he jumped at the 2-4A meet last week.
Those seven points from the win proved to be crucial when the Rams crept to within 48-46 when the 200 rolled around for Vigil and the Tigers.
Already a winner in the 100 and 400, Vigil couldn’t beat Ruidoso’s LaVaughan Smooth to complete the sprint sweep, as Smooth ran a 22.55-second time to Vigil’s 22.70. It was a small measure of revenge for Smooth after Vigil’s victory in the 100, as the pair hit the line literally shoulder to shoulder. Vigil won in 11.373 to Smooth’s 11.375, but Vigil said it felt closer than that.
“It was by, like, a hair,” Vigil said. “I thought I had it, and then I saw him coming up to my side, and I had to push it more. I kept looking over in his lane to see if he was there, and I was like, ‘Oooooh …’ ”
As for the 200 performance, Vigil’s second and teammate John Olivas’ fifth gave Taos seven points that extended the team lead to nine and set the stage for Mount. It was a welcome reprieve for Mount, who didn’t get on the podium in the 3,200. All he wanted was something tangible to show he contributed.
“I didn’t think I was going to pull it off,” Mount said. “Last year, I didn’t pull it off, and I didn’t think I was going to this year. But it feels great that I did. It feels really good.”
While the Taos girls fell a point short of getting third, losing out to Ruidoso 50-49, they got wins from Faith Powell in the high jump (the second in her career) and Cora Cannedy took the 1,600 in 5:26.04.
Los Alamos freshman Rebecca Green won the shot put with a 37-6¾ distance in her final throw to secure the title.
It felt good to be Miguel Coca, as the junior finally got his first individual title in a wild sprint to the finish of the 800 with St. Michael’s Justice Johnson, Sandia Prep’s Epherem Zerai and Hope Christian’s Jarrod Trainor. The lead changed hands three times in the final 150 meters, with Coca and Johnson going head-to-head at the finish line. Coca oustretched the sophomore by .16 as he won in 2:02.46. Along with a win later in the day in the 1,600, Coca came oh so close to winning the distance events after taking second in the 3,200 on Friday.
Coca learned a lesson about when to start his finishing kick in that race, as he pushed the pace with 350 meters left, but didn’t have enough to beat East Mountain’s Isaiah Padilla. That knowledge became invaluable a day later.
“I think I kicked a little too early [on Friday] because I got real anxious because I was one of the younger ones,” Coca said. “Since I was one of the younger ones on the track, I still didn’t know when to go, so I focused on that for [Saturday].”