The Academy Extravaganza is an important race to cap off the regular season because it is the location at which the State Championships will be run on November 9–just a few short weeks away.
A Las Cruces Digest Report
Las Cruces Digest Photo: Girls Varsity start at Centennial Hawks XC Challenge
This weekend, student athletes from seven local high schools will be making the journey to Albuquerque for the Academy Extravaganza 2024 Cross Country event. This is the same course hosting this year’s State Championship, so it is an opportunity for runners to guage the course prior to returning for the big run in November.
Local high schools participating in the event are: Organ Mountain, Mayfield, Las Cruces, Centennial, Gadsden, Chaparral and Santa Teresa.
Boys Class 4A and 5A–What’s the Story?
Boys large class high school XC in New Mexico was dominated by Rio Rancho High School in 2023. Ram’s leader, Charlie Vause, outpaced the field with a time of 15:17.16 to win the New Mexico State Championship. Close behind was teammate Mateo Herrera (15:31.41). This dynamic duo has been tearing it up in 2024.
Our broader community has a dynamic duo of our own. Organ Mountain High School’s Corbin Coombs finished 4th at State last year (15:43.16). Along with teammate, Jeron Wisner (15:54.75), the Knights had the only two boys to finish in the top 10 at the 2023 New Mexico State Championships. Both Coombs and Wisner have returned to kick up some dust of their own in 2024. Also, a new addition to the team (a freshman also named Coombs) along with two more much-improved returning seniors puts the Knights in contention for a team title, as well.
These four competitors, two pairs of dynamic runners, will square off for the first time since last year at the Academy Extravaganza. [Note: Coombs faced Vause, without their respective running mates, at the Nike XC Town Twilight Invitational in Terre Haute, Indiana, earlier in October. Both runners represented New Mexico well, and Vause (8th) topped Coombs (12th) in this early evening race.] The Academy Extravaganza is an important race to cap off the regular season because it is the location at which the State Championships will be run on November 9–just a few short weeks away.
Girls Class 4A and 5A–What’s the Story?
Last year, Class 5A Girls were dominated by a runner from Eldorado by the name of Gianna Rahmer, who outran the field by more than two minutes in the State Championships. Rahmer returns this year as a freshman. Organ Mountain has a new runner of their own, 8th grader Ashley Galaz. She will be paced by senior Knight runner, Wren Hofacket.
In Class 4A, both the boys and girls teams for Santa Teresa and Chaparral have been very active this year in local meets. We are anxious to see how they are progressing.
While the spotlight will be on the Organ Mountain teams (boys and girls), each local high school encourages their runners to achieve more personal goals, and by this point in the season, these runners know what those goals are.
Las Cruces Digest will be posting the results of the Academy Extravaganza for all local participants, and keeping an eye out for who qualifies for the State Championship run in November. We would like to encourage each and every one of our local student athletes to know we are proud of their accomplishments, and we look forward to publishing the results so they can tell their own stories and find pride in all they have accomplished this year.
Well done. Good luck, runners!
