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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Cross country running headlong into 2016

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(Brienne Green - Daily Press)
(Brienne Green – Daily Press)

If Artesia High School head cross country coach Shelley Ebarb was looking for a trial by fire for her 2016 Bulldog and Lady Bulldog runners, she found it Saturday in Cloudcroft.

The AHS teams headed to the tall, cool pines for a morning scrimmage of sorts against the host Bears, Onate and Mayfield, and they quickly discovered it was to be no easy workout.

“That was the toughest course I’ve ever seen,” Ebarb said Saturday. “It was all up and down hills. Tougher even than state.”

That said, the coach was impressed with the approach her athletes took, hanging right with Onate, which took fourth at the state meet in 2015.

“We liked it so much, we’re going to go back one weekend and train on it,” Ebarb said.

The challenge might have proven overwhelming for a team entering the season unprepared, but Ebarb says her runners did a quality job of staying in shape over the summer months.

“These kids are great,” said the coach. “They work so hard. Michaela Phipps has taken on a really big leadership role on the girls’ side and had a workout schedule for the summer that they followed. A lot of them worked really hard this summer to get their base built, and they’re looking really good right now because of it. Better than they did at the first of the season last year.

“Cross country is a very self-disciplined sport, and they’re showing a lot of self-discipline, getting out on their own to run and doing what they need to do.”

Ebarb said that willingness to put in the time and effort remains a credit to former cross country coach, the late Marcos Morillon.

“Marcos instilled a lot of work ethic in these kids, and it’s passing down,” she said. “It’s still there. This is my third year to have them, and they’re passing it down to the new ones every year.”

Artesia has a number of new runners this season, particularly on the boys’ side, where the Bulldogs lost 10 athletes to graduation in 2015.

“We only have four boys back from last year,” Ebarb said, “and a couple of others just decided they didn’t have time to run this year. But the four boys that came back are four of our top five from last year, and we have a senior who came out this year who ran cross country before he moved here, and he’ll be capable of a lot once he gets back in shape.”

The Lady Bulldogs, meanwhile, return their entire varsity lineup for 2016, as well as a junior-varsity roster that is already jockeying for position.

“We only lost one senior girl last year,” said Ebarb. “We don’t have a whole lot of new runners there, but we have a few, and the girls look really good right now because the same girls are back. But some of our JV runners are challenging for varsity, so they’re pushing each other.”

Ebarb says she is happy with the improvement the program has shown over the last few years. If that continues, the ‘Dogs and Lady ‘Dogs expect to be contenders in District 4-AAAAA come late October.

“Our short-term goal is just to improve every meet, to do better than we did last year at each meet,” Ebarb said. “Last year, we were faster than we were the year before, so we’re creeping up the ladder a little bit.

“Our long-term goal is to win district this year with both the boys and the girls. The girls were second last year and the boys were third. Roswell and Lovington have had really strong teams the last couple of years, so we’re hoping that we’re the strong teams this year.”

The Artesia runners will have the opportunity to see how the stack up early against the Coyotes and Wildcats at their second meet of the year Sept. 1 in Lovington.

Brienne Green
Daily Press Editor

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