Bloomfield wins District 1-4A track meet

BLOOMFIELD, N.M.

Last Friday, the Bloomfield High track team placed first for both boys and girls at the District 1-4A Track Meet. Aztec High girls’ team came in second and Kirtland Central girls were third.

For the boys, Kirtland Central was second while Aztec was third. The other schools that participated were Gallup High, Shiprock High and Miyamura High as they competed at the Curtis Clement Memorial Track in Bloomfield.

Bloomfield head boys coach, Robert Reigal, said he was proud with both boys’ and girls’ teams and happy with the results.

“It was excellent team effort,” Reigal said. “We talked to the kids the last couple of weeks. Going to take everyone’s effort to win the meet, everyone placing in events, we really emphasized the 4th, 5th and 6th places which makes a difference in a meet like this. A lot of kids came through.”

The team right behind the Bloomfield girls was the Aztec team. According to Allison Waite of Bloomfield, who won first place medals for the 4×2 event and the pole vault event, the Aztec girls put up a good fight.

“Aztec gave us a pretty good competition because they’re right there with us,” Waite said. “They pushed us a lot and they help us be better people, they’re just really good to compete against and I’m glad that they’re here today.”

Another standout from the Bloomfield team was Madison Bedonie who was district champion in the 100- and 200-meters and who was also a runner for the winning teams in the 400-meter relay and 800-meter relay. She was also second in the long jump.

Sydney Dugger became district champion in the discus and Lanay Gutierrez is champion for the triple jump.

On the boy’s side Ethan Beevers was district champion in the 110 hurdles, 300 hurdles, the triple jump and was a part of the winning 400-meter relay team while also coming in third for the long jump.

Bloomfield’s Mauricio Toledo came in first for the 800-meter run and the 3200-meter run. Meanwhile Lane Jordan won district for pole vault.

Another team that did well was the Kirtland Central High girls who came in third place.

Kirtland Central girls had a lot of new athletes, but head girls coach Leland Adair said they’re one of his best teams thus far.

“I was very proud of them,” Adair said. “We’re a young team, we don’t have much speed this year but I tell you what, everybody had their best times and throws. I’ve been doing this many, many years and had some really good teams … I’m as proud of this team as I have ever been proud of any of my top teams …. We had some real good performance, top performances from our kids.”

Kirtland Central girls who are district champions include Niall Young for the Javelin, JoJera Dodge who won the shot put. Aisha Ramone, who came in first for the 800- and 1600-meter runs, was also a part of the 1600 medley team that came in first.

Lastly, Autumn Harrison won district for the 3200-meter run.

Andrew Rodriguez, head coach for Gallup High, said his athletes did very well during the meet.

“We had a little way to go in the meet but so far they’re doing pretty well,” Rodriguez said. “We had a district champ boy’s 4×8, had a lot of good kids’ podium. They’re battling through the heat which is tough to do but they’re doing well and they’re getting PR and that is good.”

For Gallup two of their best athletes were Theodore Roundface who came in fourth in the 1600-meter run and third in the 3200 run, helping his team place third in the meet. His teammate Kendon Augare-Deal also helped them place in the 1600.

For the girls, they gave credit to the runners of the 4×800 relay team who came in third place.

“We’re just real proud of the kids,” Rodriguez said. “Battling with the heat and battling with masks, and battling with everything they’ve done, we’re just super proud of the job they are doing today and hope to carry that momentum into state.”

To many of the coaches, the toughest part of the competition was the heat. With this being a late season, the track and field teams are competing in 100-degree weather. They’re also following health precaution by sanitizing and wearing a mask when not competing.

During the awards ceremony, the coaches of the district took this time to honor coach Adair with a plaque. After coaching for over 20 years and being a regular at the track meets, Adair will be retiring after taking his team to state this coming weekend.

“I was really honored by that, that really touched me,” Adair said. “You know, in other sports you really get a tough rivalry and yeah we want to beat each other but there is really a good feeling among coaches in track.

“We really work together and cheer for our kids and when other kids head to state, we always cheer for our district kids. We just have a good time, and all the coaches in the district are awesome,” said Adair. “I was very humbled by that. I did not expect it, I was shocked. It was a very nice gesture by Bloomfield. They definitely didn’t need to do that but that was very kind of them.”

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