SantaFeToday.com Santa Fe’s Hometown News
By Arnie Leshin
It was quite a finish in the Capital City boys varsity 5,000 run Saturday morning over the cross country course at Santa Fe’s Municipal Recreation Complex.
It wasn’t just the tight individual race won by Santa Fe High School senior Tanner Black over Santa Fe Prep senior Joshua Abeyta, by two seconds, but in the team score, the Griffins tallied 54, one better than the Demons in the field of 46 harriers.
And yes, that’s howclose it was.
In third place was Pojoaque Valley with 74 points, St. Michael’s fourth with 107, Espanola Valley next with 120, and Cimarron scoring 143. Taos had only three entries and Capital had just one.
Behind Abeyta, Prep finished 7th, 12th, 16th and 17th, with its sixth and seventh runners racing 32nd and 33rd. The Demons behind Black came in 4th, 13th, 18th, 19th, and their No. 6 harrier was 22nd.
St. Michael’s top finisher was freshman Jaden Perea, who ran 6th in 17:56, and the lone Capital runner, junior Gabriel Guttierrez,was timed in 25:17 as he placed 45th.
No St. Michael’s freshman Raylee Hunt among the girls 36-field varsity 5,000, for she had a minor football issue and decided to take the take the race off, but she’s set to run this week at the annual Desert Twilight meet in Arizona.
But even without her, it was also a thriller of the finish when Prep’s rising 8th-grader Sophie Bair ran four seconds faster than Academy of Technology and The Classics senior Josette Gurule, with both the only ones going under 20 minutes, Bair in 19:35and Gurule in 19:39.
But here the team score wasn’t as close. The Griffins picked up 38 points, 29 better then runner-up Pojoaque Valley, with ATC next with 73, and Espanola Valley fourth with 134. Host Santa Fe High ran only two runners, same as Taos, while there was one entry from Capital and four from Cimarron, which made the longest trip to the Invitational.
The lone Jaguars’ runner, junior DeAngelina Archuleta, came in 35th and clocked 30:55.
