Cross country gets into full gear with Saturday’s annual meeting

Strong girl’s field includes Academy of Technology and The Classics, Pecos, Santa Fe Prep and St. Michael’s

By Arnie Leshin 

The new alignment pieced together by the New Mexico Activities has plenty of traveling changes in addition to number changes in the five groups.

The increased number of changes put A/2A with the most number of schools, 38, which should make for a crowded field when the state cross country championships run at Rio Rancho High in November.

Right behind is 4A with 29, 5A with 27, and 3A now with only 21 schools after many were switched from 3A to A-2A. This alignment will operate from now to the 2019-20 school years.

One notable change moved Academy of Technology and The Classics from 3A to A-2A, which puts the Phoenix cross country girls, who finished third in 3A last season, now having to contend with defending state champion Penasco and Pecos, which also dropped from 3A to A-2A.

Which means defending 3A champion Cottonwood Classical will now face the challenges of Zuni, Rehoboth Christian, Laguna-Acoma, and Santa Fe Prep. They are the four that finished behind Pecos and ATC at state.

Problem is, Cottonwood is not going anywhere. It returns its top six led by senior Rhylyn Jones, and sophomores Ariel Pena and Jordan Tatum, who ran off with the top three spots at state. It also gets back its other four harriers, which will make it tough to beat.

Cottonwood came away with 48 points, 10 more than Pecos, and 29 more than ATC.

So now it’s Penasco, with two-time defending state A-2A champion also featuring the two-time individual winner Carly Gonzales, now a junior. Who raced 20:36.s55. Not only that, but it also returns the remaining runners.

But when you look at state championship times, it puts the Panthers and the Phoenix close behind Penasco, where as versus Cottonwood, the two were further back.

Now does Santa Fe Prep have a chance to make the podium? Maybe,

maybe be not. But the Griffins bring back the 16thplace sophomore Chelsea Griscom and 18th place freshman Sophie Addison.

They were the first Prep runners to cross the line. Then there’s senior Brooke Little, junior Hallie Weichael, junior Savannah McCall, freshman Ellie Wirth, and junior Abby Francis.

With only the first sixth finishers officially scoring for all schools, it would be a difficult task for the Prep coaches to put together the top six, and then there’s junior Hayden Colfax, who did not run in last year’s meet. She was on the soccer team that was hoping to gain the state championship match, but fell in the semifinals, so Colfax became a cheerleader at state XC. So that’s eight Griffins returning.

Pecos and ATC didn’t graduate anybody, so both of them are right in the mix again, only against Penasco and not Cottonwood.

The Panthers ran 4th, 6th, and 8th at state behind sophomore Vanessa Dominguez,, who raced 20:55.25, senior Faith Flores, and freshman Savanah Ortiz, with Dominguez right of there with the Cottonwood trio.

There’s also sophomore Alexis Gonzales who ran 15th, freshman Kianna Quintana who finished 25th, and freshman Loryn Trujillo who came in 37th. It’s a young group, with Flores the lone senior.

Right behind is ATC, and it has one of the youngest squads of all. Not a single senior, just for sophomores and one junior. Sophomore Maggie Rittmeyer led the Phoenix by finishing seventh in 21:33.10, 10th was Kate Ferguson, 13th was Josette Gurule, 21st was Kamryn Hoehne, 26th was Naomi Lujan, and right on her heels was the lone junior, Marialy Ochoa.

All will be running in Saturday morning’s annual meet at the University of New Mexico.