NMMI Sports Press

Last weekend, the Colt and Lady Colt cross country teams got to host – and run – in their own NMMI Invitational, held at Roswell’s Cielo Grande Sports Complex on Saturday, Sept. 14 

“I think it was a very good meet,” said head NMMI coach Jan Olesinski. “We had 16 different schools present, representing many of the high schools in the surrounding area -  large schools like Hobbs, Carlsbad, Alamogordo and Roswell, along with some smaller schools like Capitan, Mescalero and Tucumcari.”

According to coach ‘O’, every race had about 60+ runners, with the biggest race being the JV with over 100. “All-in-all we had almost 300 kids compete when you consider the race for the middle school runners, as well,” said Olesinski.

Lance Miller got took home top honors for the Colts, a sixth place finish in the boys’ varsity race, with a time of 16:37, while Mia Walker earned NMMI’s best place of the day in the girls’ varsity race. Her time of 20:05 was good for third.

“Those two did great today,” said the coach. “They are definitely two of my top runners. But the rest of the team competed, too. We had some freshmen, some new cadets, some first-time runners, and everyone did well.”

“I think overall NMMI did very well in the meet,” continued Olesinski. “We were missing a few runners due to other important obligations our cadets had with the Corps or academics, such as 21-Day ceremonies or SAT prep classes. As such, team-wise we didn’t do our best, but we still had a few finish in top places.”

Next up for the Colt and Lady Colt cross country squads will be another weekend race, as they head up to Pecos, NM, just south of Santa Fe, to try running at a little higher elevation (6,923 ft as opposed to Roswell’s 3,573 ft).

“It will be nice to compete against some different teams,” said coach. “This will be a unique meet for us. It’s the first time we’ve gone there, the course will be much different than the ones we tend to run here, we’ve get to see several teams from the north part of the state, plus the meet features mostly smaller 2A and 3A schools.”

Complete NMMI Results

Boys’ Varsity:
Lance Miller, 3^rd place, 16:37
Jeremy Pinion, 25^th place, 18:21
Stephen Swope, 40^th place, 19:28
Juan Aguirre, 41^st place, 19:31
Hector Grijalva, 44^th place, 19:55
Lance Savage, 51^st place, 20:30

Girls’ Varsity
Mia Walker, 3^rd place, 20:05
Tessa Walker, 16^th place, 21:14
Christina Robertson, 27^th place, 22:56

Boys’ JV:
Nicolas Chavez, 21^st place, 20:01
Niall Devlin, 22^nd place, 20:02
Caleb Eisenhower, 23^rd place, 20:09
Aadhav Sivakumar, 62^nd place, 23:27

Girls’ JV:
Autumn Weaver, 5^th place, 24:44