Path to the Podium-Jeff Davis Boys
What exactly did it take for a team to arrive at the moment where they are standing on the podium, clutching their prized trophy? In this article, Jeff Davis coach Will Wood details the journey his boys took to their 4th place finish in Class A Div 1.
XC 2024
Any seniors that set a good example or laid the foundation?
We had three seniors (Jovani Barragan, JoseLuis Mendoza, & Jose Avila) that provided excellent leadership for our 2024 team, while also demonstrating great commitment and dedication to the goals that we set as a team.
We also had three senior girls (Ali Lewis, Rebeca Lopez, & Lily Relihan) that played a pivotal role in helping guide all of our runners (boys and girls) towards the new season. I think that it helped that all three of those girls signed to run at ABAC, so that helped keep a lot of our runners focused on their long-term running goals.
Any results that gave motivation (good or bad).
Honestly the 2024 season was a rough year and myself and the team were ready to move on to the 2025 track & cross country season. We lost our #1 runner after week two of the season to a season ending injury that was not related to cross country. Then just a few weeks later our area was hit with Hurricane Helene that destroyed our campus, course and community, leaving us with limited areas to train safely. The damage also caused us to lose hosting several meets including the sectional meet, in which we had to move to a nearby school. After Hurricane Helene we had another top runner (#4) decide to not return to the team, which left us trying to fill another hole. Several of our guys stepped up big time in the final weeks of the season.
Despite all of the negativity surrounding the 2024 season we finished the season on a high note with a 5th place finish at State just seven points off a podium position. We knew that if we hadn't lost our #1 early in the season and if we hadn't lost 3 weeks because of Hurricane Helene that we would have probably been a podium team. I think this propelled us into looking forward to the 2025 season.
Winter 2024
Anyone that stepped up their training with XC already in mind
A lot of our guys are soccer players and transition to soccer as soon as the cross country season ends. However, many of them still continue to run on their own.
Mindset of the non-seniors
Our returners were excited to look forward to the 2025 season for track and cross country.
Any setbacks/challenges that had to be overcome?
Still recovering from the Hurricane and trying to establish safe places to run and train.
Track 2025
Anyone that had a breakout season, or new additions, that changed the outlook of XC
As I stated earlier a lot of our guys focus on soccer in the Spring, so our track roster looks significantly different than our cross country roster.
Our 4x800 relay team had a pretty good season and only one of those runners was a senior so the majority of that group was not only training for track but also looking towards the cross country season.
Sophomore Mario Franco qualified for the State meet in the 3200m, our first qualifier in that event in quite some time. (Not exactly sure but pretty sure it has been over 10 years since anyone has qualified for State in that event.)
Also Junior Will Morris had a great track season in the 800 & 1600 despite only being with us part-time because he also played soccer.
Anyone that was already expected to contribute, but still had a good season
I think our biggest bright spot in boys track actually came from our MS track program. We had a good group of 8th grade runners that had good seasons across the distance events. That is something that we had not had in several years in the boys program to have that much depth and we knew that getting that group for cross country could be significant in the Fall.
Summer 2025
Any new additions that changed the outlook for XC
I've already mentioned our 8th graders coming in that had great cross country & track seasons. We knew that several of them would be able to contribute to the cross country season if they committed to their summer work.
We would also be getting back Konnor Munsayac (2024 #1 runner) who we lost early in the 2024 season to a season ending injury. Along with Konnor returning we would also get back senior Bryan Hulett who missed all of his junior season recovering from an ACL injury.
Kevin Barrios (Sophomore) a soccer player would also join the team, despite never running before we had high expectations for what he could bring to the team.
Early goals for the season
We had two main goals for our summer...
For as many runners as possible to complete their summer training miles.
To build a good bond between our runners since we had a big group of freshmen coming in, as well as, several returning from injuries, and one new runner to the program.
How the team handled summer training
We were happy with our summer training. Most of our runners met their summer mileage goals but we knew that patience was going to be key with all our new runners and for those that were returning from major injuries during the 2024 season.
Any setbacks/challenges that had to be overcome?
No, we stayed mostly healthy throughout the summer and most of our runners met their summer mileage goals so we felt like we were in a good spot going into the start of the season.
Season 2025
Anyone that had a breakout season that changed the outlook
It's hard to talk about any certain individual, as almost everyone improved significantly from the 2024 season. All of our guys started the season pretty close to how they finished the 2024 season, which was a pretty good indicator that big things were to come if we stayed focused on the end goal. Over the early part of the season our times continued to drop little by little and we just kept encouraging them to stay focused so that a BIG time drop would happen when the time was right.
How early results compared to any goals
Honesty, our goals were just to compete well in our early season meets. Myself and my assistant (my wife) felt like if we could be competitive early and if we kept everyone mostly healthy throughout the season that our confidence would grow. We felt that was the biggest aspect to having a successful season, especially with the new runners we were getting, plus the runners returning from injury that had missed all or part of the 2024 season.
Any revisions of goals?
After looking at early season results we felt like we were in a good position to stay locked in on making the podium. However, about midway through the season we were still performing well but other teams started to make gains on us or even surpass us. We took a much different approach to our scheduling this year so we didn't race quite as much through the middle part of the season as we normally do. So we had to do a lot of reaffirming to our guys that we were in a good place and to just stay faithful with our training that we would close those gaps back at the end of the season.
Any setbacks/challenges that had to be overcome?
None. We actually stayed really healthy this year. We added several things to our training regimen that we hoped would keep us healthier and more resilient throughout the season.
In hindsight, key moments of the season that led to the State result
I think two races standout as key points in our season. First, the AT&T Starr's Mill Panther Invite. This was our first time participating in this meet and we had a really good experience traveling to this meet. I think this trip helped solidify our team bond that started earlier in the summer. In addition to having a great team bonding experience with this trip we also raced very well despite it still being early in the season. Secondly, was the Three Rivers XC Classic a home race for us in early October and the same course that we would race on one month later for Sectionals. After having a couple weeks off from racing I was a little nervous how we would look. I was worried that we might be a little rusty and not race well. However, almost everyone either ran a Season Best or Personal Best at this meet.
The AT&T meet set us up for the middle part of the season, while the Three Rivers meet set us up for the last part of the season. We then had a great Sectional meet (Region Champs - 6th in a row and also were 1st at the Sectionals).
At this point we were just hoping we had one more good race in us to finish out the year strong and we did, fulfilling our 2025 motto "Made 4 More".