Farmington collects 2 gold, 2 silver medals at state

ALBUQUERQUE

The Farmington track team walked away with eight medals during last week’s New Mexico Class 5A state track meet, which included a pair of gold and silver medals.

Farmington freshman Avery Sandefer won the girls triple jump and she placed second in the long jump. Scorpion hurdler Alex Serrano took gold in the 300-meter hurdles while junior James Rogers earned a second-place medal in the javelin.

Sandefer won the triple crown with a 35-feet, 8-inch effort as she topped her state qualifying mark by over a foot. She hit that mark on her final jump.

“I feel like my coaches and my teammates just really hyped me up,” Sandefer said. “I did a quick little sprint, and that really helped, too.”

The Farmington jumper was seeded fourth coming into the state meet, but she set the bar at 35-02.50 on her first jump with state runner-up Makaylee Burt of Los Lunas only going 34-07.50.

“I thought maybe I would get second or third, and that would have been pretty cool,” Sandefer said. “But I was not expecting to get a state championship.”

In the triple jump, she beat her state qualifying mark by 7.25 inches with a 17-11.25 effort for another PR. Hobbs junior Zayla Mitchell won the state crown at 18-04.

“If I do make state next year, I want to push myself to get first place,” Sandefer said. “I think it’s a possibility to make it to state again next year.”

In the 300 hurdles, Serrano was looking to increase his lead, but during the race the Farmington senior had alternate his lead leg in between the hurdles. Nonetheless, he posted a new PR of 38.52 seconds as he beat out Mayfield’s Xavier Ochoa for the state crown with Ochoa clocking in at 39.96.

“I actually thought I was gonna run away faster, especially with I how felt in the prelims,” Serrano said. “Today, I came off too fast and I had to switch legs and so that kind of threw me off a little bit.

“In hurdles, you can’t stutter to have make a good time,” he added.

This was Serrano’s first state crown, as he finished eighth in said race during last year’s state meet.

“I actually fell in the same race last year,” Serrano said. “The same thing happened when I had to switch legs on the same hurdle. I tried to jump over it on my right leg and I fell.”

Serrano also qualified for the 110 hurdles, but he opted of that race as he was nursing a leg injury he sustained during the Albuquerque Academy meet earlier this year.

The multi-talented athlete also earned a state bid in the long jump and placed sixth with a 21-08.75 effort with only one jump.

“I only jumped once because I didn’t want to tweak my leg anymore,” Serrano said.

In the javelin, Rogers beat his seed mark by three inches for a new PR of 171-11. The junior came up 11 inches short of winning state as Volcano Vista senior Brennan Nelson won with a throw of 172-10.

His second-place throw came on the fifth attempt as Rogers faced some difficulties with his initial three throws. In fact, he barely made the finals with a throw of 149-00.

With a new set of throws, Rogers increased his distance to 153-01 before he went nearly 172 feet.

“I fixed some of my steps and that really helped,” Rogers said. “I warmed up, but not to a certain extent that I needed to get dialed in to get my throws at those far distances.”

“I came here intending to win state, but I’m very happy with the outcome today,” he added.

Earlier this year, Rogers reset the school record of 171-08 during the Los Alamos track meet, which was previously held by Tierney Staley, who recorded a throw of 157-07 in 2014.

On Saturday, he increased that school record by three inches.

“I want to push myself to keep breaking the school record that I broke this year,” Rogers said. “I want to keep PR-ing and keep moving through the progression of javelin.”

Other state placers from Farmington included a fourth-place finish from Daniel Austin in the boys triple jump (44-02) and a pair of sixth-place efforts from Chloe Huff in the girls 100 (12.80) and Gilberto Quezada in the boys pole

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