Leaving her mark: Cuba powerlifter captures state title

RIO RANCHO, N.M.

Cuba’s three-sport athlete Adriana Toledo is leaving her mark.

The soon-to-be graduate claimed the school’s first state title in powerlifting. She was one of five athletes from Cuba High to qualify for state as a first-year program.

Toledo, who competed on the volleyball and cheerleading team, finished with a score of 710 by deadlifting 335 pounds while squatting 260 pounds and benching 115 pounds at last Friday’s all-girls state powerlifting competition in the 259-plus weight class in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

“I got really dedicated to this sport since I started lifting,” Toledo said. “I just told myself that this is my last year, so I wanted to do something about it.”

What she did was blew her marks out of the water as she improved her lifts in all three disciplines. She increased her squat lifts by 15 pounds, upped her deadlift by 10 pounds and bettered her bench by 5 pounds.

“As the (school) year started Adriana was in my weight class and I mentioned to her about powerlifting and as it go closer to January she got more excited about it,” said Cuba powerlifting coach Josh Adair, who also heads the football program. “And when the season officially started she mentioned that she wanted to be a state champion.”

And although she had the strength to win a state title, Adair said she had to work on increasing her hip flexibility.

“With powerlifting you don’t go parallel with squat,” the Cuba coach said. “You have to go below parallel so we had to work on her hips. She put in the work for it and so after cheerleading practice she would come down and work on her hips.

“She made sure she got all the workouts in and she bought into what we were teaching her,” he added.

Initially, it took some time for Toledo to adapt to the rules of powerlifting as she did not record a score in her first two meets.

“When we went to Sandia she wanted to squat 250 pounds in her opener,” he said. “She didn’t get low enough, so she bombed out and that goes back to hip flexibility.”

The Cuba athlete acknowledged that she was frustrated, but she was determined to get it right.

“With it being my first year I really didn’t understand what was going on until the second meet,” Toledo said. “I didn’t have that much experience, so I had to work around my mistakes every time I practiced.”

Adair said it wasn’t until the third meet in Shiprock that his pupil had the means to be a state champion.

“She really blew it up,” he said. “For squat, she finally got over 225 pounds and she got low enough for it to count. I think she deadlifted 300 pounds for the first time too.

“I noticed a shift in her confidence,” he added. “I kind of knew that she was going to win state.”

For its fourth meet, Adair said, they had planned on attending the Espanola Valley meet but on that same day Toledo was competing in the state cheerleading competition in Albuquerque.

Per the New Mexico Activities Association, state qualifiers needed a minimum of four meets to make state.

With that catch-22, Adair called Shiprock coach Anthony Clah and he agreed to host Cuba for a dual meet on Mar. 18, one week before Toledo’s state cheerleading competition.

“She lifted 325 pounds in deadlift and 245 in squat and 110 in bench,” Adair said.

With those new marks, Toledo came into the state powerlifting competition seeded third for a score of 680 behind Rio Rancho’s Sterling Glenn (710) and Lovington’s Jayln Yanez (685).

“We knew that girl from Rio Rancho was going to be an issue,” Adair said.

With bench being her weakest event, the game plan going into the state meet was staying with those two girls in both the squat and bench.

“I felt like she could beat those girls in deadlift because that’s been her best lift all year,” Adair said.

Going into the final event, the Cuba coach said his pupil trailed Glenn by 45 pounds as she was sitting fourth overall.

With that she started the deadlift at 315 pounds in her opener.

“In powerlifting, the highest attempt goes last and when she opened at 315 that put her in the bottom of the board,” the Cuba coach said.

In her next lift, Toledo successfully lifted 325 pounds, which put the pressure on Glenn as she attempted 325 in her third and final attempt to claim the state title.

“When she didn’t get that 325, we bumped Adriana back from 345 to 335,” he said. “I knew that she was more comfortable at that weight.”

Toledo said she was willing to attempt 345 if the Rio Rancho athlete cleared 325.

“My coach was doing all the math and he figured out what I needed to do,” she said. “Honestly, I was kind of scared. I tried not to panic and when I got up there to lift I had to trust myself and just be positive.”

With deadlift being her strongest event, Adair said it enable her to come back and win the school’s first state title in said sport.

“That goes back to the amount of time she spent in the weight room,” he said. “That commitment I got from her before the season started really drove her.”

Besides his squad, Adair said there were two other smaller schools that competed with Cobre winning the small school team title with eight points.

With seven points each, Cuba tied with 2A school Cloudcroft for second place.

“Our other two girls took sixth,” he said of Magdalena Guana-Casaus (at 97 pounds) and Payton Binion (220).

“If one of them got fifth we could have gotten the blue trophy,” he said.

In the boys division, Mike Salazar and Tyress Jake earned state qualifications with Salazar tying with Santa Rosa’s Landyn Zamora for second place in the 114-pound division.

The two powerlifters totaled 610 pounds each while event winner Gerardo Bustillos of Jal lifted 615 pounds.

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