Miyamura girls take third: KC boys finish fourth

ALBUQUERQUE

With a split time of 1:30 between its first and fifth runner, the Miyamura Lady Patriots earned the third-place trophy at the New Mexico Class 4A state meet on Saturday.

The Patriots tallied 100 points with state powerhouses Los Alamos and Albuquerque Academy going 1-2. Los Alamos finished with 29 points as the Hilltoppers collected its 25th state crown while Academy scored 75 points.

In the race for third, Miyamura beat out city rival Gallup by 10 points as the Lady Bengals racked up 110 points while Grants took fifth at 145 and Shiprock placed sixth at 192.

“We knew that everyone was chasing us for third,” Miyamura coach Manuelito McReeves said. “The girls ran a good race, and they pulled through. They did an outstanding job and I’m just so proud of them.”

The Patriots were led by senior Shelby Haskie who placed 12th overall with a time of 20:06.0. Miyamura were also paced by senior Kylie Montano (19th, 20:39.4), senior Shelby McCray (23rd, 20:59.1), sophomore Tamia Enote (26th, 21:08.9) and junior Payton Haskie (36th, 21:36.9).

“This is really great, and this is unbelievable,” Shelby Haskie said. “I mean, we did stuff that we thought we couldn’t do, but we showed it here today. And I’m proud of that.”

Of his top finishers, the Miyamura coach said Enote ran her best race of the season.

“Tamia was the one that pulled through today,” McReeves said. “She went from seventh to our fourth runner today, so she did very well. Our top three runners Shelby Hoskie, Kylie Montano and Shelby McCray just pulled it together today. They did very well today.”

And although she felt fatigue, Enote emphasized the importance of not giving up as she had a massive PR, improving her time on the state course by 2:47.

“When you get tired, you just have to push through,” Enote said. “I just thought about not giving up because we needed to finish strong.”

McCray, who is Miyamura’s third runner, expected a strong challenge from Gallup so the focus was look for the girls in orange.

“We had to stay in front of them,” McCray said of Gallup. “That was our goal today and we did it.”

As for the team finish, McCray says they left all they had on the course to earn a podium appearance.

“It means a lot,” McCray said of earning the third-place trophy. “You know, we worked hard every day, and we knew we had it in us. We were very close with Gallup, and we needed to beat Gallup and we got it.”

For Gallup, they were paced by junior Mykeia Vicenti as she missed the podium by one spot with her 11th place finish. Vicenti covered the 5K race in 19:28.1.

In the boys race, the Kirtland Central Broncos also missed the podium by placing fourth overall with 115 points.

The Academy boys won the state crown with 36 points followed by Los Alamos (56) and St. Pius X (94).

KC junior Tyler Harrison was four seconds shy of making the top 10 as he placed 11th at 16:33.30. Miyamura’s Izaiah Freeland took 14th overall, clocking in at 16:33.3. The Miyamura senior helped the boys team to a sixth place finish with 155 points while Gallup placed seventh at 235 points.

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