Self-sacrificing teamwork is Kirtland’s hallmark

FARMINGTON

When Tiajhae Nez realized she had started to tire, she asked her teammate, Aisha Ramone, to go on without her.

The two Kirtland Central High School cross-country runners were running elbow-to-elbow when Nez, the senior, decided it was best to let her teammate go ahead of her.

“I felt kind of tired, so going up the hill was really tiring,” Nez said. “I just told her to take off. I told her not to wait, and to take the lead.”

Nez encouraged her teammate as all the Lady Broncos do with one another. That kind of encouragement earned the Lady Broncos their third straight team first-place finish this season. Kirtland Central placed first with 25 points at the Totah XC Invite hosted by Piedra Vista High School last Friday.

Shiprock finished in second with 50 points and Navajo Preparatory School in third with 95 points.

Finishing first for the Lady Broncos was Ramone, a freshman, who was back to her old self after recovering from a knee injury. She finished first overall and for the team in a time of 23:29.01.

Ramone said it felt good to be back, but she never anticipated finishing as well as she did.

“I was just wanting to make top five,” she said. “This is my first time running in first. I was trapped at the start. I was top 10 until we go to the bottom of the hill, then that’s when me and my other teammate, Tiajhae, started working together.”

Ramone said she saw that her teammate had started to slow down and she kept with her until she was instructed to move on.

She said she wasn’t far from Shiprock’s Khadija Lapahie, who held the lead. Once they finished with all the hills, Ramone took the lead.

“I took off after the sand,” she said. “I just kind of felt that I knew I could hear her footsteps behind me.”

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