Raylee Hunt, now a St. Michael’s freshman, is off and running

Remember how Raylee Hunt, an 8th-grader last year, finished ahead of the six Albuquerque Cottonwood Prep runners as she relatively unknown began her  high school cross country run in the colors of St. Michael’s.

In that 3A pack was Cottonwood’s top harrier, junior Alyx Master, who finished second but then became the only to finish ahead Hunt, and she did it twice. Now there’s no Master to race against as she switched to a new program instead of running for Cottonwood.

So in the Moriarty Invitational, Hunt won in 20:24.76 on a course that Horsemen head coach Lenny Gurule described as so-so, and this time as a freshman she left behind three runners from Albuquerque Academy, including senior Emma Patton, who finished second in last year’s 4A state championships

St. Michael’s has only three runners at this time, and they are young like Hunt, with 8th-grader Ellie Msolf placing 15th at the Moriarty 5-kilometers and freshman Lauren Patten was 19th. Msolf ran 25:12.72 and Patten 27:13,36.

The next stop for Hunt, whose junior sister Logan is on the reigning state championship soccer team and will also run when that season is over, is at Saturday’s annual Capital City Invitational hosted by Santa Fe High and raced at the Municipal  Recreation Complex in Santa Fe.

“Raylee is away to a good start again,” Gurule said, “and she will run better times on better courses because this one was far from good.

She ran 19:26.34 in taking second at state, with Master’s 18:37.28 the fastest of all fields. Now Hunt has more experience and showed her heels to the Chargers who handily won the meet with a whooping 17 points, 27 better than runner-up Taos, while Espanola Valley took third with 63. Academy also ran 7th and 8th.

In the boys run won by Chargers’ senior Joaquin Deprez in 18:03.31, the Horsemen’s best finish was 11th in 19:43.02 by Jaden Perea. In 18th was junior Ivan Loya in 20:43.07, senior Ryan Kuhn took 20th in 21:13.67, and the No. 5 runner, 8th-grader Caleb Perea, Jaden’s brother, running 26th in 22:19.63.

The Academy also won again with 20 points, 35 better than second-place Los Lunas, host Moriarty scored 97, and next came St. Michael’s with 108. Belen and Espanola came away with 114 points each.

Also in the Capital City Invitational are the host Demons, St. Michael’s, Santa Fe Prep, Capital, Pojoaque Valley and Academy of Technology and The Classics, now under new head coach Kieran Gonzales who replaced former head coach Tim Host. The meet is planned to begin at 9 a.m.

Another Saturday meet will be the annual Pecos Ron Valdez Memorial Invitational that is scheduled for a 9 a.m. start.