Bengals place first at 3rd Cheromiah Memorial Invite

By Santiago Ramos Jr.
Special to the Times

CASA BLANCA – The Gallup Bengals swept three of the four awards during the 3rd Annual Marilyn Cheromiah Memorial Invitational Friday afternoon at Laguna Acoma High School.

The cross-country meet was named after Cheromiah, a lifelong teacher, coach, athletic director and administrator before she passed away in 2021.

The Gallup boys and girls swept the overall team awards over Santa Fe Indian School while adding the individual boys award.

This coming Saturday morning, many area schools will be competing in the Rio Rancho Jamboree at the Rio Rancho High School football stadium.

The championship girls race will begin at 9 a.m. followed by the girls varsity race at 9:30 a.m. The championship boys race will start at 10 a.m. with the varsity boys race at 10:30 a.m.

Boys

In the boys team standings, Gallup squeezed its first three runners in the top 7 to finish first with 42 points. Santa Fe Indian School took second with 60 points, followed by host Laguna Acoma 67, Thoreau 115, Grants 128, Jemez Valley 148, NACA 189, Tse Yi Gai 264, Toha’jilee 191, and Shiprock Northwest 280.

Bosque, Pine Hill, Alamo Navajo and Hozho Academy did not have complete teams.

Gallup’s top runner was senior Theodore Roundface, who finished ninth at state last year. He crossed the finish line with a winning time of 18:32 over a field of 74 other harriers over the 3.1 course at the high school.

Laguna Acoma’s Tagoya Pedro was four seconds behind Roundface with a time of 18:36.

Roundface, a five-year varsity runner, placed 15th at the UNM Invitational last week, was running on the Laguna Acoma course for the first time.

“It was a really fun course,” said Roundface of his first run on the LA course. “I really enjoyed it. The start was pretty slow. I took the lead once I started to come out of the trees and coming into the start area in the last half mile.”

Roundface and Pedro both sprinted down toward the finish line with the Gallup senior with a stronger kick to win by four seconds.

“I was wondering when I was going to push it,” Roundface said. “It was a good race and it was a fun race with the guys.”

Roundface is hoping to move up from his ninth place finish at state last year and possibly take first.

“I thought I could win it actually,” Roundface said of this year’s state meet.

SFIS’ Kale Loretto finished third (18:54), followed by Thoreau’s Ian Silversmith fourth (18:57), and Laguna Acoma’s Lucas Williams rounded out the top 5 (19:01).

Gallup sophomore Sage Livingston finished sixth (19:24), Gallup senior Landon Begay seventh (19:36), SFIS’s Antonio Pecos eighth (19:49), Jemez Valley’s Chase Toya ninth (19:51) and SFIS’s Brian Madalena 10th (20:18).

Gallup’s fourth and fifth runners, junior Dreshawn Kinzel was 11th (20:21) and sophomore Dwight Calvin 18th (21:06).

Gallup head coach Kyle Benally was pleased with his boys team’s win.

“The boys also added some much needed confidence to our team,” Benally said. “We’ve battled the injury bug that has taken out three of our varsity runners but this shows our depth this season as other runners have stepped up to the plate to help us come out victorious at Laguna Acoma. We were also challenged by Santa Fe Indian School.”

“We’re missing three seniors Dwight Spencer, Ethan Brown and Newcomb Josiah Carl,” Benally said. “They’ll be out another few more days and should be back to helping our team. They’ll be at Rio Rancho.”

Girls

In girls team standings, Gallup packed its first four runners in the top 10 to finish first with 32 points, followed by Santa Fe Indian School 43, Jemez Valley 98, NACA 104, Grants 126 and Thoreau 131.

Meet host Laguna Acoma had four runners and did not have a complete team. Bosque, Hozho Academy and Pine Hill also did not have complete teams.

Grants sophomore standout Laila Martinez, who finished ninth at state last year, grabbed her second straight win of the young season, taking top honors with a winning time of 21:36 over 51 other harriers over the 3.1-mile course by LA’s athletic fields.

Martinez, who won at Rehoboth last week, just held off Laguna Acoma freshman Mia Smith by six seconds who finished a close second with a time of 21:42.

“I was tired at the end”, said Martinez who won the 800 meters along with a second in the 1600 and a third in the 3200 at the state track meet a year ago. “It was very hilly and sandy. I felt like we went out pretty fast for the first mile. Then the second mile we slowed down a little bit because it was all uphill. And then the last mile we picked it up more. We (Smith) were back and forth the whole race. She’s good competition. I’m excited for her.”

Martinez, whose dad is Acoma and her mother Laguna, will be running at Saturday’s Rio Rancho Jamboree where she finished third last year.

Martinez said she trained after the cross country season was over last year.

“I trained all through the winter,” Martinez said. “I think that has helped me a lot. I also ran during the summer time. I had a pretty good head start when we started school.”

Gallup freshman Mykeia Vicenti-Wolf led the Lady Bengals’ team win taking third (22:33) followed by SFIS’s Destiny Chino fourth (23:24) and Gallup freshman Madison Martinez rounding out the top five spots (23:54).

Gallup senior Merisha Long was sixth (23:58), SFIS’s Kaydence Riley seventh (23:59), SFIS’s Danielle Smith eighth (24:08), Jemez Valley’s Kayla Chinana ninth (24:29) and Gallup sophomore Natalie Dixon 10th (24:38).

The Lady Bengals’ fourth and fifth runners were junior Tiana Tom 13th (25:31) and junior Payton Johnson 16th (26:03).

“For the girls this was a major confidence booster for them,” Gallup’s Benally said. ”We came in here with very little expectations because we have never raced at LA before and most of the competition was new to us. But we definitely received a challenge from SFIS which was much needed for our girls to fully believe that they are one of the best teams in the state. We are only getting better from this point.”

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