Lady Cats finish 10th at 5A state

May 21—ALBUQUERQUE — Gabrielle Foggie didn't win the race she'd hoped to win, but she did enough to help Clovis High's girls earn a top-10 finish in Class 5A state track over the weekend.

Foggie came up short in her bid to repeat last year's 400 title as a sophomore, but not for lack of effort. In a fast field, she claimed second place in the event in a time of 57.20 seconds, trailing Las Cruces High junior standout Kaselle Davis (55.58).

Seven of the eight finalists ran times of under a minute, and Alamogordo's Ayanna Gilbert wasn't far off at 1:00.50.

"It was probably the best 400-meter final on the girls' side in the last three or four years," Lady Wildcats coach Avery Rasher said.

Davis won the 100 and 200 in addition to the 400, and anchored the Lady Bulldawgs' 1,600 relay to third place, although Cruces still only finished eighth in team standings with 37 points.

Eldorado and Rio Rancho tied for team honors with 61 points, while La Cueva (49), Sandia (48) and Hobbs (47) rounded out the top five. Clovis came in with 13 points.

Rasher said he and Foggie were aware of what they were up against coming into the meet.

"She's been steadily improving the last three weeks," he said of Foggie, who won last year's event by nearly a second at 57.93. "I thought she might have a shot (against Davis). She's definitely on her way to being a top-tier sprinter, for sure."

The Lady Cats' other points came on five fifth-place finishes, including four on Saturday. Eighth-grader Nevaeh Barros CHS on the board in pole vault on Friday, while on Saturday senior Mackenzie Roach went 33 feet, 5 inches in triple jump (a half-inch behind Organ Mountain's Gia Fernandez).

Other points came in relays finals, with the 400 relay team of junior Jori Mondragon, Roche, Foggie and freshman Skye Karoki clocking 49.63 seconds and the 1,600 relay squad of Foggie, Roche, Karoki and eighth-grader Christina Waltrip notching a time of 4 minutes, 9.84 in the final event.

The latter was just enough to pull the Lady Cats out of a tie for 11th with Organ Mountain and into 10th place.

Roche, Foggie and Karoki were in all three of the scoring relays.

"They rose to the occasion," Rasher said. "Their determination and energy was really amazing."

Meantime, the boys finished in a four-way tie with Cibola, Gadsden and Mayfield for 16th place, all with five points. Junior Sammy Fuentes placed fifth in the 1,600 on Friday in a personal-best time of 4:27.41, then nearly set another personal best on Saturday when he ran 9:56.82 in the 3,200, good for sixth place.

Rio Rancho's Charlie Vause notched a meet-record time of 9:18.49 while runnerup Jeron Wisner of Organ Mountain also broke the previous standard en route to a second-place finish at 9:30.87.

Senior Kohen Matus brought in two points for the Cats on Saturday, taking fifth in javelin (158-8).

"Sammy ran pretty tough," Wildcats coach Mark Sena said. "The kids are competing hard and showed improvements. We weren't quite in a scoring position yesterday (Friday), but today we did well with Kohen and Sammy."

Rio Rancho Cleveland won the meet with 75 points to 62 for Rio Rancho. Organ Mountain was third with 52.