With lineup finally complete, Navajo Pine stays in the blue zone

By Sunnie R. Clahchischiligi
Special to the Times

RIO RANCHO, N.M.

At the start of the last few seasons, Galvin Curley and Michael Marshall took some time to share a small bit of information with their teammates.

Being the veterans of the team, they told their teammates of the fateful day when they brought home a green trophy and vowed to never do it again.

“They shared the experiences they had as freshman and told them ‘We got the green trophy, but look where we’re at, we got the blue trophy now,’” Navajo Pine head coach Kayleigh Thompson said.

That small bit of information was enough to motivate the team to earn back-to-back state titles last season and it was all they needed to earn their third straight title last Saturday at the New Mexico High School Cross Country Championships. Navajo Pine earned a total of 37 points for first place.

It was an accomplishment that did not come easy, which the team was well aware of.

Thompson said the team lacked numbers and dealt with the pressure that only small teams face.

“At the beginning of the season, right off the bat, they knew this year was going to be way tougher than the previous year,” she said. “It proved that.”

The team spent most of the season looking for a sixth and seventh runner and finally found their lineup about two weeks before the state meet.

New faces added another layer to the pressure to earn a third straight title.

“It’s a whole different team than last year,” she said. “We have our three seniors, but we also have a few new runners as well—three new runners on our varsity squad.”

But on Saturday, that factor became an nonissue as all seven runners did their job and earned Navajo Pine earned their first three-peat in 11 years. The last Navajo Pine team to do so was from 2005-2008, when they earned four titles in a row.

Leading the team to victory for the second straight year was senior Galvin Curley.

A runner who typically lets his running do the talking was all smiles Saturday afternoon when he accepted his second straight individual state title with a time of 16:13.50.

Curley said it not an easy feat to win individually and as a team, but his team deserved it.

“It feels good. No words can explain how it feels. It was a long and hard season, but we got through it as a team,” he said. “It was awesome.

“I remember just starting,” he continued. “I was just getting runner-up or not even placing in the top 10, but as the years progressed I just kept working and working, and now it just feels good to be a two-time state champ; no words can explain it too.”
Curley said the challenges the team faced this season made the win a lot sweeter.

He said they never had to work as hard as they did this season, which made it the perfect way to end the cross-country season with his teammates.

“It was much harder just going into races because everyone knew who we were,” said Curley. “Everyone wanted to beat us, so at practice we had to work two times harder than we had to last year.”

Curley also put a lot of pressure on himself.

Knowing it was his last season and having a title already under his belt, he said he put pressure on himself to compete and repeat.

“Right when the summer started, that’s when I started working,” Curley said. “I knew there was a target on my back and I just knew the only way I could win was just keep working.”

The pressure was something they felt in every race and in every practice.

Another senior leader, Michael Marshall, who placed second in a time of 16:41.90, said the pressure could be felt well into the final race over the weekend.

“It was challenging to see who was going to come after us,” he said. “We just had to visualize everybody.”

But in the end, the extra miles, the hard work, and everything that came with it was worth it.

“It feels great, just bringing the tradition back to Navajo Pine,” Marshall said. “It’s emotional … but you just have to get the work done.”

As a sophomore, Marshall earned an individual state title and led the team to its first blue trophy, but has since passed the torch to Curley.

He said he had a stellar season and was happy to lose to Curley if he was to lose.

“I was hoping to stay with Galvin, meet up with him, but he earned it,” Marshall said. “Especially with the work he put in over the summer, he deserves it much more than I do.”

Adding to the team’s success this season was Ryan Kee, who finished fifth overall and third for the team in 17:17.05; Dominique Clichee, who finished seventh overall and fourth for the team in 17:39.75; Micah Tsosie, who finished 22 overall and fifth for the team in 18:28.55; Nicholas Begay, who finished 44 overall and sixth for the team in 19:27.65 and Ryen Martinez, who finished 48th overall and seventh for the team in 19:34.75.

While Thompson said it was an emotional moment to see the team earn what they had worked for this season and throughout the last four years. She was most emotional thinking of her seniors.

“It’s very emotional. I’m trying to hold back my tears just because of what they set upon themselves from freshman year, from that first green trophy, when they said, ‘No more green, it’s all going to be blue from here on out,’ and that’s what they did,” she said. “I’m very proud they did that.”

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