Cats cruise at Capital City meet

SANTA FE — The most difficult obstacle the Clovis High boys cross country team faced for Saturday’s Capital City Invite may have been their alarm clocks.

An extra-early bus ride from Clovis proved no problem, however, and the Wildcats had four of the meet’s top five runners to cruise to a first-place win with 23 points.

The Wildcats were led by Jerrick Maldonado, who claimed first place with 15:51.

“We had to get up at 3:30 to go to this meet,” Clovis coach Mark Bussen said, “but it was worth it.”

Jon Fuentes (16:16), T.J. Gregg (16:18) and Jose Salas (16:40) finished 3-4-5, while Kannon Brooks 17:10 was Clovis’ final team scorer in 10th place. Within a minute of Brooks were Clovis’ other two finishers, Elias Calderon (14th, 17:43) and Colton Wolf (17th, 17:51).

Pojoaque was second in the eight-team field with 56 points, followed by Santa Fe Prep (86) Santa Fe High (104), Taos (121), Valencia (160), Espanola Valle (179) and Capital (220).

Clovis coach Mark Bussen felt the Wildcats did what they were supposed to as one of the meet’s larger schools.

“The schools that were there are cross country schools and competitive,” Bussen said, “but at the end of the day we should run (well against) those teams. We had a good meet as far as running together.”

The Clovis girls, meanwhile, put all five of their scoring runners in the top 20 for 71 points, just behind Pojoaque (69) for third place. Taos won the meet with 35 points and had the medalist in Alyx Mastor (19:44).

Annalysse Hamlett led Clovis at 20:39 to place sixth. Other Clovis finishers were Faith Hays (12th, 21:44), Shylee Tree (15th, 22:15), Layla Walley (18th, 22.32), Alli Tree (20th, 22:42), Sofia Rico (22nd, 22:46) and Veronica Perez (26th, 22:56).

“On the girls side,” Bussen said, “we ran really well. Last year, we didn’t really touch Santa Fe (fourth, 89 points). The girls bunched well together, and getting everybody in under 23 minutes was great.”

Clovis is back in action Thursday afternoon at the Hobbs Invitational.