Cross-country teams qualify for state meet

Both the Tucumcari boys and girls cross-country teams qualified for the state meet after strong performances at the district meet Friday at New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell.

The Tucumcari boys will compete at the state meet at 10 a.m. Saturday at Rio Rancho High School. The Lady Rattlers will compete for state honors there at 12:05 p.m. Saturday.

Tucumcari finished third with 57 points. NMMI won the meet with 20 points, while Cobre was runner-up with 47 points. The top three teams qualified for state automatically.

Tucumcari’s Josh Chavez finished second overall on the 3-mile course in a time of 17 minutes, 49 seconds. Teammate Manny Hernandez finished 10th in 19:01.

Chavez and Hernandez earned all-district honors.

Other boys competing for Tucumcari were Charles Prieto (17th, 20:14), Alexander Lujan (23rd, 22:05), Joe Martinez (25th, 22:34), Joe Garcia (27th, 23:44), Britt Lusk (30th, 24:22) and Dwight Brown (31st, 24:25).

The Tucumcari girls finished third at district with 52 points. NMMI won the meet with 26 points, and Socorro finished second with 42.

Erin Encinias was the top runner for Tucumcari with a time of 22:20, good enough for fourth overall. A’leaya Lucero finished eighth with a time of 23:39.

Encinias and Lucero qualified for the all-district team.

Also for the Tucumcari girls, Ashley Shipley was 13th in a time of 23:57, Leslie Navarrette was 16th in 28:31, and Melanie Jones was 18th in 35:05.