By Eric Butler
MaxPreps.com
Prior to the Class 5A state cross-country race on Saturday, the Cibola Cougars didn't bother themselves worrying about every possible contender. Instead, the Cougars chose to concentrate on two teams: (1) Their own; and (2) The Eldorado Eagles.
Talk about a strategy that paid huge dividends.
Cibola won its first state championship in boys cross country and celebrated before the final results were even announced – an iffy proposition in this sport. But the Cougars, moments after the race at Rio Rancho High School, knew they had accomplished their prime objectives in the race.
And that was good enough for the first-place team blue trophy.
"All the whole time in district we were getting the team to come up with new strategies every race," said Cibola junior Vincent Montoya, who finished third overall. "We had three guys – Josh Clark, Andrew Stearns and Thomas Debenedittis – take over Eldorado's third guy. Me and my brother (Chris) were supposed to go with the Palmer twins.”
Sure enough, the Montoya twins stayed in hot pursuit of Eldorado's Palmer twins through the first half of the race.
Eventually, Bryce Palmer – with the best boys time of the day at 15:07 – won the race with Kevin Palmer finishing second as Vince and Chris Montoya (who finished sixth) dropped off.
But all the excitement came from the second-tier of runners. Debenedittis finished in the top 10 at ninth, Josh Clark crossed the line in 14th and Andrew Stearns came in 19th.
And even another Cibola runner, Kendall McVey (22nd), finished before the third Eldorado runner (C.J. Martinez in 27th) ended the race although his points weren't counted in the team statistics.
The result was that Cibola won with ease, with 51 points. Sandia placed second with 73 points while Eldorado was a distant third with 94.
In the 5A girls race, Carlsbad senior Brandy Castillo won the Class 5A individual title, after using the pacing of twin sister Brittany Castillo over two-thirds of the three-mile course at Rio Rancho.
"I liked the pace, but I knew I could go faster – so I took off," Brandy Castillo said. "I wanted state. I knew if I took off and got a lead I could keep it. It was so important – I just wanted to make a statement.
"Last year wasn't our best year and I just wanted to make up for that," added Castillo, who finished seventh at the 2007 state meet.
Eldorado's Kristy Hannah finished second, while Erika Firebaugh of La Cueva took third – just ahead of Brittany Castillo.
Clovis' Caitlin Waters passed Rio Rancho's Tamara Lementino in the final stretch for fifth, but it was Lementino's Rams who captured the 5A team championship. Lementino and Alana Littleford (8th) finished in the top 10 for Rio Rancho.
"I'm so excited right now. We're the best in the state and no one could ask for anything more," said Lementino, a sophomore. "We wanted this the most. We proved people wrong and got our respect back."
The Class 4A girls race saw diminutive Clara Milne of Academy cruise to the individual state title as her mark of 17:55 would have been good enough to win any of the girls competitions on this day. Milne's efforts also led the Chargers to the team championship as Julia Foster (4th) and Megan Dunlap (8th) also finished in the top 10 individually for Academy.
Santa Teresa's Jackie Campos, the defending champ in 4A cross country, finished second – 30 seconds behind Milne. Roswell's Anna Olesinski, like Campos running without the benefit of teammates, was third.
In 2007, Milne said she was actually hospitalized on the day of the cross country championships.
"I got really sick and couldn't finish the season," Milne said. "I worked really hard to get here. Everyone (at Academy) has worked really hard and state was something we were really aiming for."
Academy also won the 4A boys championship as the Chargers placed five runners in the top 10 – led by Pat Zacharias' third-place finish. But it was runners from Los Alamos that grabbed the first two positions as Kyle Pittman won the race in 15:19 while teammate Gareth Gilna crossed 12 seconds later for second.
Gilna actually had the lead for almost a mile-and-a-half before relinquishing it to his teammate.
"Me and Kyle have been running together most of the year," Gilna said. "It would have been nice if I could have won, but it didn't really matter. We ran one-two, so we got the points."
In Class 1A-3A, St. Michael's won both the boys and girls team events.
The boys individual winner was Thoreau's Dustin Walthal, followed by Bloomfield's Evan Bekes and Sandia Prep's Dillon Shije. St. Mike's Fred Baca, his school's top finisher, crossed in fourth.
Kate Norskog, a St. Michael's sophomore, was the primary reason for the Santa Fe school's triumph in the girls race. Norskog easily won, besting anyone else by over a minute.
"I pushed it. I tried to push it the whole way. You always have to go out and run your hardest," said Norskog, who added that there was no letting up or looking back in the last stages of her one-minute-and-four-second victory margin. "My mom got mad at me once (for looking back) and I haven't done it since."
Pojoaque's Sophia Torres, who was the reigning state champion for Class 3A, finished second to Norskog. After Sandia Prep's Bronwyn Bedrick crossed in third, Santa Fe Indian runners Marlinda Pecos and Olivia Mermejo took fourth and fifth respectively.
Although Torres was the defending champ for 3A, Norskog was the favorite as she was the state champion as an eighth-grader back in 2006.
Like St. Mike's, Navajo Pine pulled off the boys/girls team sweep at the Class 1A/2A level.
The individual small school winners, however, were Troy Madalena of Jemez Valley in the boys race and Caroline Kaufman of East Mountain in the girls.
Kaufman outsdistanced Santa Fe Prep's Emma Hamilton in the latter.
"I had raced with her before and I knew that's what she had done," said Hamilton of Kaufman's spurt in the second mile that left her behind. "I was just planning on going with her, but she's fast. I tried my hardest, but I couldn't quite do it."
