Prep cross country: Blue Griffins looking to gain ground

Navajo Pine wins Santa Fe Indian School Invitational over the weekend

Pancho Morris | The New Mexican

10/6/2008 - 10/7/08

Sometime between today and the second Saturday in November, Santa Fe Preparatory needs to find a way to overcome a 150-point deficit to Navajo Pine, if the Blue Griffins want to win their first state championship in girls cross country.

Perhaps, the gap isn't the Grand Canyon that it was Saturday when Navajo Pine, two-time reigning Class A-AA state champion, captured the Santa Fe Indian School Invitational with 63 points, while Santa Fe Prep, last year's state runner-up, placed seventh with a team score of 213.

After all, the teams stuffed between the class of A-AA included a pair of Class AAAA powers, a trio of AAA title contenders, not to mention the reigning state champs from AAAA (Belen) and AAA (St. Michael's).

Still.

"I was amazed that they won that meet," Jody LeFevers, Santa Fe Prep head coach,
says. "To beat Los Alamos, and Santa Fe Indian School, and Belen, I wasn't expecting that at all. I didn't expect we would run with them, but I didn't expect them to be that hot."

Or the Blue Griffins to be that cold.

"Our number two and three ran sixth and seventh for us," LeFevers says. "That wasn't a good look for us at all."

Emma Hamilton, meanwhile, shined.

"Emma ran amazing," LeFevers says of his senior, who is among the favorites to capture individual honors at state.

Hamilton covered the 3-mile course in 19 minutes, 16 seconds.

She crossed in sixth, but had the highest finish among A-AA runners.

She is eight seconds off the school record.

Another bright light was eighth-grader Tessa Schultz.

"She was another good look," LeFevers says of Schultz, who ran a personal best and was the second Blue Griffin to cross the finish line.

At the 2007 state meet, 14 points was the separation between Navajo Pine and Santa Fe Prep. LeFevers knows precisely where the race is won.

"Consistency," he says. "We need to get our three, four and five to run consistently week after week after week. We've got to start nailing these down every Saturday."

The clock is ticking, but there is time.

"I just basically highlighted the fact that we are a month out from state," LeFevers says of his post-race talk. "I believe we'll still have a runner go sub-19 at state in Emma, and our two through five runners go under 21. That would be the fastest pack time we've ever had at state.

"I'm expecting the best state performance we've ever had. If we do that, I'm not saying we'll beat the Navajo Pine team we saw Saturday. But we'll run a lot closer to them.

"We're not sending up a white flag at this point."