Taos runs away with title for 5th time
Sprinter Vigil, a junior, easily wins 400 meters and three other events
ALBUQUERQUE — Taos got one for the thumb, Arjay Ortiz ended his run with brilliance and Jonah Vigil took his latest step toward legendary status.
All things considered, not a bad way to wrap up the 2017-18 high school sports season.
On a picture-perfect day that featured just enough of a breeze to take the edge off, the State Track and Field Championships for Class 4A-6A came to a conclusion Saturday evening at the Great Friends of UNM Track Stadium. The Taos boys stole the show in many respects, grabbing their fifth-straight Class 4A team title, and star sprinter Jonah Vigil winning all four events in which he was entered.
Vigil followed his state-record setting performance in the 400-meter preliminaries by grabbing the win in Saturday’s finals, breezing to comically easy win that fell short of his own record, but posting a time (47.59 seconds) that was still better than the 4A standard before the meet began.
He said later that he was held out of the team’s 400-meter relay in favor of the meet-ending 1,600, but ran in neither because the Tigers clearly had enough depth and speed to win both despite not having the state’s fastest runner taking part.
Now with eight individual championships to his credit over the last three years, Vigil said he can’t even remember how many other medals
he has won.
“I’m not too sure, I haven’t really checked,” he said with laugh. “I’ll just say I can’t really remember.”
In truth, Arjay Ortiz can’t really remember what he’s done, either.
The Las Vegas Robertson senior does know this, however: He walked off the track and took off his high school uniform for the last time relishing the fact that he was a state champion in the last event he ever participated in.
Headed for New Mexico Highlands to play football next fall, he ended things as a high-schooler by dominating the 300-meter hurdles to go with a third-place finish in the javelin and second place in the 110 hurdles.
“When I get in the blocks, I’m always talking to myself,” Ortiz said, revisiting his mindset as he stepped to the starting line for the 300 hurdles. “Then I told myself I can’t be one of those people that won state in that race last year and didn’t do it again this year. I had to win that thing no matter what, and as soon as I hit that first hurdle, I knew I had it.”
Not everyone who walked off the track Saturday was a winner, but that didn’t make the story any less compelling. Santa Fe High sprinter Theo Goujon made the finals in 6A’s 100-meter dash. Despite finishing sixth to earn a spot on the medal podium and land the Demons their first point of the meet, he was overshadowed by Manzano’s Jordan Byrd.
A senior bound for the football team at San Diego State next fall, Byrd blazed his way to a win in 10.5 seconds.
It took a minute or two for the actual time to be announced to the crowd. Immediately after the race, the scoreboard flashed 10.4 and the public address announcer boasted that it had established a state record, eclipsing Bobby Newcombe’s 10.5 set in 1997.
It was soon revealed that Byrd’s time was an identical 10.5.
Goujon crossed in 11.34 seconds to earn a medal.
“This meet didn’t really feel like my meet, but it’s honestly been an honor running with Jordan Byrd and all these other amazing athletes from 6A, and I was just happy I was able to, in a way, hold my own against all of them,” Goujon said. “It’s really kind of humbling to run against them, because you never really know what it’s like to do it until you actually run against them.”
Santa Fe High was a nonfactor in the 6A meet, finishing with just four points. The only other medalist was River Edwards finishing fourth in the 200 meters.
Cleveland rolled to the team championship, its third straight and sixth in the last seven years. Albuquerque Academy dominated the team chase in 5A, having clinched the title before Saturday’s midmeet intermission.
As for 4A, Taos got a serious push from Silver before picking up 17 points in the final three events in the form of Vigil’s win in the 200 and the win by the 1,600-meter relay team.
The final tally had the Tigers winning, 81-75, with St. Michael’s a very solid third with 54 points.
The Horsemen piled up the points without wining an individual event Saturday. Shawn Roybal was second to Vigil in the 100, Justice Johnson was second in the 800, and the Horsemen won the 800-meter relay.
Robertson was fifth in the team standings while West Las Vegas was seventh. All but one of the Dons’ 22 points was racked up by Miguel Coca, a senior with a remarkably strong connection to his sunglasses. He prefers to run in black-framed Oakleys with smoked-finish lenses.
On Friday night, he accidentally left them at a restaurant, forcing his parents to scramble to recover them and him turning to a teammate for a backup pair. He ran the 800 on Saturday afternoon wearing neon-famed glasses.
“To be honest, I don’t feel right unless I have my regular glasses,” he said. “I’m so used to them and I feel really uncomfortable without them so, yeah, I’m definitely having that go through my mind when the race is about to start.”
Thanks to the ingenuity of his parents, Coca’s glasses were recovered in just enough time to have him run away with the 3,200meter championship, giving him a clean sweep of the three distance events that included the 1,600 on Friday.
The 5A meet saw Los Alamos finish fourth with 44 points, 39 behind Academy. The Hilltoppers got a win in the 800 from Elijah Velasquez.
Needing a late push in the final 150 meters to squeeze past Academy’s Julian Garcia and Aztec’s Matthew Smith.
“Running was never really my thing until my family moved to Los Alamos,” Velasquez said. “We were always a basketball family, and then I went out for track when I was in the eighth grade. Even then, I never worked with distance until this year for the first time. I think I’ve finally found my place there.”
And with that, the prep season came to an end. Before heading out for the team bus with the latest championship trophy for his dynasty of a program, Vigil took one final glance at the facility he has made his own personal playground the last few years.
“I’m not really sure where my ceiling is,” he said. “I guess we’ll see next year.”