Maldonado third, Clovis teams eighth at CC state meet

ALBUQUERQUE — Clovis senior Jerrick Maldonado finished third in 5A, and both Clovis teams finished in eighth overall at the state cross country championship held Saturday at Albuquerque Academy.

Maldonado crossed the finish line in 15:57.33, just behind Piedra Vista’s Nakua Harvey (15:49.01) and Cleveland’s Ricardo Rangel-Valencia (15:51.69). It is the second top-three finish in two seasons for Maldonado, who was initially ruled the winner of last year’s 5A championship but gave the medal back after video showed he was edged by Piedra Vista’s Triston Charles.

His Clovis teammates finished between 36th and 51st place, with Colln Tomoyose (18:02.43), Sammy Fuentes (18:30.23, 45th), Nehemiah Gonzales (18:33.16, 46th) and Hayden Levy (18:53.6) also running.

Cleveland, which had three of the top 11 finishers, won the meet with 31 points ahead of Rio Rancho (35). No other school scored under 81, with Clovis netting 104 points.

In the girls run, Eldorado’s Laurynn Sisneros crossed the finish line in 18:35.78, easily beating out Cleveland’s Leah Futey (18:57.15).

Katarina Arbogast was Clovis’ top finisher, going 19th at 20:46.81. Other Clovis runners were Shylee Tree (22:19.26, 38th), Allison Tree (23:28.63, 46th), Kira Tree (26:05.58, 60th) and Chloe Masaitis (26:44.48, 61st).

Rio Rancho had three of the top nine runners and placed all five of its runners in the top 20 to win the meet with 35 points. Eldorado (44) edged out Alamogordo (45) for second place. Clovis scored 135 points.