Kirtland Central High brings home team win at Patason Amesoli Invitational

FRUITLAND, N.M.

At the start of the season, Kirtland Central High head coach Lenny Esson vowed that his girls’ cross-country team would eventually rise to the top.

Last weekend they did just that when they took home the team win from the Patason Amesoli Invitational hosted by Zuni High School.

The Lady Broncos had a combined score of 63 points. East Mountain High School finished in second with 76 points and Shiprock High School in third with 109.

Esson said he’s had injured players for the past couple of weeks and so his young junior high runners stepped up to the plate.

“Their presence really boosted our performance as a team,” he said. “It was the first time we’ve actually had a full team.”

Esson said he’s had varsity runners but not quite a full roster to compete as a team, but that was something he knew well before the season.

After summer workouts, Esson knew that he had a young, talented group moving up from the junior high but they had to first finish their junior high season. Before the season started, Esson said his team would be more competitive once they received the young members midway through the season, and they were.

“I knew because these girls were running with us, training with us over the summer on and off, and we knew the talent was going to be here,” he said.

On the boys’ end, Kirtland Central finished in third place with a score of 95 points. East Mountain finished in first with 50 points and Zuni High School in second with 71 points.

Esson said it was a bit of an “off race” for his boys; some of his frontrunners had some uncharacteristic finishes.

He said some of it could have been the intense training they have had.

“Overall we did well but we didn’t quite run what we’re used to,” Esson said. “We just finished our last week of high-intense mileage, I think they’ll be thankful this week that we’re backing off a little.”

Local top individual finishes included: Kirtland Central’s Kashon Harrison, who finished first in a time of 16:07.04; Shiprock’s Arron Gould, who finished third in a time of 17:16.18; Zuni’s David Charlie finished in seventh overall in a time of 17:31.50, Zuni’s Ryan Bowekaty finished in eighth in a time of 17:32.59, Laguna Acoma’s Deion Lukee finished ninth in 17:34.17 and Miyamura’s Nicholas Jameson came in 10th in a time of 17:34.46.

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