Los Lunas boys come out victorious at Los Lunas Invite

The Los Lunas boys cross country team came out on top at the Los Lunas Invite last Saturday, blowing away the rest of the field in the process.

The Tigers came in first with a score of 31 in the varsity race, while second place Wingate finished with a score of 88.

LLHS had four runners finish in the top 10 of the competition, headlined by senior Lance Lueras who finished the 5000 meter course in 17:41.21.

Butch Bottini was next in third place, followed by John Baker in seventh and Treyton Padilla in tenth.

The lowest finish for an LLHS runner was 28th place.

The Tigers junior varsity team also came out victorious, giving LLHS a boys sweep of the races.

Meanwhile, Valencia finished sixth in the nine team field with a score of 154, one place ahead of Belen which scored a 166.

The Jaguars top finisher was Ovi Iguado, who came in 13th with a time of 19:01.87. William Luther also had a top 20 finish, coming in 19th with a time of 19:19.03.

For the Eagles, Santos Sisneros was the team’s top runner, finishing in sixth place in the field with a time of 18:02.31.

Johnny Austin was the Eagles second finisher with a time of 20:10.67, good for 32nd in the field.

On the girls side there were only seven scoring teams, as Belen, Jemez Valley and Socorro were the schools with a scoring team on the boys side that did not field a scoring girls team.

Grants, however, was able to field a girls team but not a boys team.

Cottonwood Classic Prep came in first place with a score of 30, while Los Lunas finished third at 86, three points behind second place Wingate.

The top finisher for Los Lunas was Amanda Sparks, who came in eighth place with a time of 22:06.17.

Kiyah Padilla was the second runner from LLHS to finish, coming in 10th place with a time of 22:24.29.

Valencia, meanwhile, came in fifth with a score of 105. Raquel Chavez of the Jaguars had the best finish of any of the Valencia Country girls, finishing in second place with a time of 20:54.13.

The second finisher for VHS was Sonja Lopez with a time of 23:59.25.

VHS is sure to celebrate being able to field scoring teams on both the boys and the girls side, as low participation numbers at the beginning of the year prevented coach James Perez from doing so.

The meet was the final tuneup for teams prior to the biggest meet of the regular season, the Rio Rancho Jamboree on Oct. 19 at 8 a.m., which will provide the schools with their first look at the course where the state championship will be held.