By BLAKE WOOD
Assistant Coach
LAHS Track & Field

The question on everyone’s lips was “How many State Records will the Hilltopper Boys Track & Field team break?” It was just assumed that they would win their fourth straight State Championship, which they did by a large margin. The answer to this question was either ‘three’ or ‘four’, depending on how you count – on their way to winning all five relay events, they set new State Records in the 4×100 (twice, in prelims and again in finals), 4×200 and 4×400.

In the 4×100 relay, the team of Haiden Jorgenson, Rocco Quintana, Daniel Kim and Melaki Gutierrez ran 41.05 seconds in Friday’s prelims, beating the previous Class 4A State Record of 42.47 by a remarkable margin of over 1.4 seconds. This time also beat the State Record in all the other school-size classifications.

But they weren’t done yet! In Saturday’s final, the Hilltoppers (with Julian Singell replacing Haiden Jorgenson, who was competing in other events) beat their own State Record with a time of 40.93 seconds – the first sub-41 second 4×100 ever run in New Mexico high school athletics! Needless to say, this was also a new LAHS School Record.

In the 4×200 relay, Julian Singell, Alex “Boom” Pasulka, Daniel Kim, and Melaki Gutierrez ran 1:26.19 in Saturday’s final, well under the existing Class 4A record of 1:28.6 from 1991 – 33 years ago! Again, this was also a new LAHS School Record.

In the final event of the meet, the 4×400 relay, Haiden Jorgenson, Daniel Kim, Rocco Quintana and Alex “Boom” Pasulka ran 3:18.22, under the old Class 4A record of 3:19.44.

In addition to those new State Record performances, the ’Topper Boys completed a sweep of the remaining relays, winning the 4×800 relay (Lyas Eidenbenz, Gus Ovaska, Andy Enriquez, and Grafton Urbatch, 8:14.54) and 1600 medley relay (Haiden Jorgenson, Lyas Eidenbenz, Rocco Quintana, and Grafton Urbatsch, 3:37.16).

Alex “Boom” Pasulka broke his own LAHS School Record in the 400 m by more than half a second, running 48.03 seconds to finish State Runner-Up.

Melaki Gutierrez was presented with the Class 4A High Point Athlete trophy, having accumulated 21 points. Five of the top -10 high point athletes were Hilltoppers, evidence of the team’s remarkable depth.  By the way, Track & Field scoring for places 1-6 is 7,5,4,3,2,1 points in individual events, and 10,8,6,4,2,1 in relays, split between the four athletes.

Hilltopper Boys were winners of 6 of the 15 individual events, led by Melaki Gutierrez, who won both the 100 m (10.56 sec) and 200 m (21.31 sec) – he was defending State Champion in both events. 

Grafton Urbatsch repeated as State Champion in the 800 m, with a #5 all-time LAHS performance of 1:55.67. 

Matt Brousseau won the discus with a throw of 145′ 10″. 

Daniel Kim won the 300 m hurdles in a remarkable time of 37.69 seconds, breaking his own LAHS School Record by nearly half a second.

Finally, Julian Singell won the 110 m hurdles in a time of 14.84 seconds, in addition to taking 2nd to Kim in the 300 m hurdles in a #3 all-time LAHS mark of 38.43 seconds.

Other performances of note: In addition to Urbatsch’s win in the 800 m, Lyas Eidenbenz and Gus Ovaska both cracked the significant 2 minute barrier with times of 1:58.75 and 1:59.57, and 5th and 7th place finishes, respectively. Andy Enriquez finished 9th in 2:02.06. Will Gartz broke an 18-year-old LAHS Freshman Record with his 13th place, 2:05.03 finish. Esteban Wright completed the ’Topper-heavy field with his PR 16th place, 2:09.36 finish.

In addition to his discus win, and despite fighting a serious stomach bug, Matt Brousseau finished 3rd in the shot put with a throw of 48′, followed by teammate Jaydon Dudley in 5th place with a throw of 45′ 1-1/2″.

Jayden Ramirez and Aiden Manzanares  finished 3-4 in the pole vault with leaps of 12′ 6″ and 12′, respectively.

Rocco Quintana and Melaki Gutierrez  went 4-5 in the long jump with leaps of 21′ 3-1/2″ and 21′ 4-1/2″, respectively, and Rocco finished 5th to Melaki’s win in the 100m, in a time of 11.03 seconds.

Haiden Jorgenson improved his #5 all-time LAHS mark in the 400 m with a 49.06 seconds, finishing 4th, and then triple jumped 42′ 11-3/4″ to finish 5th and notch the #5 all-time LAHS performance in that event. 

Finally, in two gutsy races in the peak heat of Friday and Saturday afternoons, Benjamin Sanchez finished 3rd and 2nd in the 1600 m and 3200 m, in times of 4:27.64 and 9:41.23, respectively, both personal best times.

At the end of the meet, the Hilltopper Boys had accumulated 138 points to runner-up Albuquerque Academy’s 86.5 points and 3rd place Artesia’s 43.5 points.

Contributing to the Hilltopper Boys success is their dedicated coaching staff, led by Head Coach Steven Montoya. Sprinters, hurdlers, and relays are coached by Daniel Dunning. Throwers are coached by Bob Scott, Pat Brousseau, and Robbie Harris. Distance runners are coached by Lindsey Montoya, Josh Stein, Kyle Pittman, Tom Stockton, Blake Wood, and Rebecca Clark. High jumpers are coached by Christie Kelly and Gabe Holesinger. Horizontal jumpers are coached by Chuck Cotter. And pole vaulters are coached by Ernest Martinez (who is also the Girls Head Coach).