Taking care of business: Storm boys take first at Storm Relays track meet

RIO RANCHO — On a bright, sunny day, the Cleveland boys track and field team won the Storm Relays Track Meet at Cleveland High School April 11. The Storm girls also had a great showing, finishing in fourth place.

BoysThe Storm boys dominated and came in first place with 140 points; second place Los Alamos finished with 91 points and trailed Cleveland by 49 points.

“It was a great showing for us, and we just continue to trend up,” senior thrower Robert Sabado said. Sabado came in fourth place in the shot put with a throw of 45 feet, 7 inches, which is a personal best.

One of the Storm’s standout athletes was junior sprinter Collin Joyner, who helped Cleveland win two relay races (4x100 meters and 4x400 meters), and individually won the 110-meter hurdles; he also came in second in the 300-meter hurdles.

“I feel good, definitely looking forward to more races,” Joyner said after anchoring the 4x100 meter relay squad to victory.

The Storm’s 4x100 meter relay team included Joyner, junior Jacob Maldonado, senior Juan Munoz and senior Michael Haynes while the 4x400 meter relay team featured Joyner, Munoz, Haynes and senior Julian Ortega.

The Storm boys also found plenty of success in the long jump, and senior Tahi Gonzales reigned supreme with a leap of 20 feet, 10 inches that earned him first place. Junior Samuel Bustillos came in third with a 20-foot mark.

However, the X-factor for Cleveland was the success of their throwers: they won the discus and shot put events while crowding the top of the leaderboards. Junior Moses Sparks won the shot put with a throw of 53 feet, four inches and came in second place in the discus with a throw of 136 feet, 7 inches.

“We’re building, just building on what we have,” Sparks said.

Junior Damion Lopez won the discus event with a throw of 139 feet, 10 inches, and looked smooth in his footwork and release.

“It felt pretty good, but I still got a lot of things to work on,” Lopez said.

Senior Gabriel Marquez also did his fair share by taking third in the shot (47 feet, 2 inches), and sixth in the discus (118 feet, 7 inches).

“They aren’t ready for us ... the Storm is coming to take state,” Marquez said.

Girls“Just run hard,” freshman runner Alina Trujillo-Sando said. Well, the Storm girls did just that and put on a solid showing at the Storm Relays.

The Storm girls finished with 91 points and were three points away from a top-3 finish.

“Hopefully, we can keep working hard in practice and try to reach those new heights,” junior runner Naomi St. Clair said.

The Los Alamos girls won the Storm Relay meet by scoring 106 points.

“We are going to continue to get better in every single thing,” senior thrower Mariana Delgado-Ortega said, who set a personal best in the discus throw with 103 feet, 9 inches.

In the first event of the day, runner Shahad Akasha brought some electricity by winning the 3,200-meter run (11:47.34).

The Storm girls also had an impressive showing in the 4x800 meter relay, finishing in first with a time of 10:11.14.

“I think everyone can expect a consistent 4x800 meter team every single week,” said senior runner Sarah Romero, who was the anchor of the 4x800 meter relay team.

The 4x800 meter relay team consisted of Romero, St. Clair, freshman Alina Trujillo-Sando and junior Marisel Yepa.

If there was a perfect time to have popcorn in hand, it would have been during the hurdle events as Cleveland track star Morgan James battled it out with Los Alamos’ Colette Bibeault. For a little background, both James and Bibeault won State in the 300-meter hurdles. James won in 5A, and Bibeault in 4A.

While Bibeault bested James in the 100-meter hurdles with a blazing time of 14.95 seconds, James stormed back and topped Bibeault in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 44 seconds, beating Bibeault by .01 of a second. After the races, it was all smiles and laughter between James and Bibeault, who seem to be good friends.

“This has been a great day, but our season is not over yet,” Yepa said.