Legacy at the heart of Organ Mountain cross country

Led by a freshman girl, Ashley Galaz, a sophomore boy, Daxton Coombs, and a rookie head coach, the Organ Mountain High School cross country team hasn’t missed a beat. It’s a success story fueled by the legacy of an amazing coach and families who love running.

Both Galaz and Coombs got into running because they saw the enjoyment their older siblings got from it. Daxton follows in the immediate footsteps of his record-setting brother, Corbin, who is currently serving a church mission in Oregon before beginning his collegiate career at Wake Forest University.

“I used to play tennis,” Coombs said. “Then both my older brothers ran, and they were pretty successful, so they encouraged me to join. I'll play other sports just for fun, but mostly pretty much just running.”

His early success shows Coombs isn’t content to stay in anyone’s shadow. Galaz also followed a family path to running.

“For most of my life, I'd been playing soccer, since I was three, but then in sixth grade, I stopped that,” she said. “My sister was an eighth grader, and she got to run for Organ Mountain. That’s what kind of drove me to want to run when I got to eighth grade. I really looked forward to that. I still play basketball but mostly just focus on running.”

While there is a team aspect to cross country, both of these young athletes also thrive on the individual battle.

“It's different than a team like sport like basketball or soccer,” Galaz said. “I'm very competitive and in running, you're competing kind of one against one against someone else. I think it's really fun.”

The legacy aspect of what’s happening at Organ Mountain goes beyond what happens in individual families. David Nunez retired last season after 30 years of championship-level coaching that set a certain expectation with this program. Ida Holguin has picked up where Nunez left off, leading both the boys and girls teams to district titles last week. Like these athletes, she has the personal experience of stepping into the winning environment.

“With these kids, there's just such a legacy of great running here at Oregon Mountain,” Holguin said. “So, kids like to be part of something that's great and successful. They continue to show up every day and they're very supportive of each other, which really helps a lot. I think that it's exciting to join a team or a program that has such a great history.”

Coombs and Galaz have a drive to succeed that, combined with their love of running, are hard to hold down. Both of them do two or three workouts a day.

“I think that the more you're able to work and practice, you can see that in the results for running,” Coombs said. “That really gets me to work hard knowing that if I don't work hard, then I won't be as good. I wake up in the morning and run and then even sometimes after practice, I’ll do like a core workout or plyos because my older brother taught me how to train better and how to stay motivated to get better.”

For Galaz, it’s less about being noticed for her effort than it is about the character that is revealed when there is no audience.

“I'm like two or three miles in the morning normally so I can add up more mileage,” Galaz said. “Just pushing yourself, pushing your limit to see like how fast you go and training hard even when people aren't watching because that's the only way you're going to get better, both in the offseason and during the season.”

District champions

Both Galaz and Coombs won individual district titles Oct. 31, but just as importantly, their teams also won district together. That means all of them will run at state Saturday in Albuquerque.

While the two stars get the headlines, there are other great stories all around this team. The boys won district by just one point after freshman Maximiliano Pavon chased down another runner to pick up that final point. He finished in 22nd position, but that was where he needed to be to send the team to the state meet.

At the district meet, Coombs finished with a time of 16:31.99, 15 seconds ahead of the second-place runner, Jacob Sierra of Las Cruces. Aiden Poppy and Beaux Beasley finished third and fourth for the Knights in the boys' race.

That one-point win came over Las Cruces rival Centennial, which got a six-seven-eight finish from Ethan Mondragon, Mason Dean and Keller Ford.

For the girls the margin was much more comfortable, 25 points. Galaz ran an amazing 19:47.69 to win the race by more than a minute over Arabella Richardson of Mayfield. Eva Nolan of Centennial was third. Knights Isabella Barlow, Jaymie McBroom and K-Lee Martinez came in fourth, fifth and eighth to provide the depth the Organ Mountain girls needed.

Despite being young, Galaz and Coombs are great leaders among their teammates. They get energy from team interaction and provide guidance to other runners.

The team aspect of cross country

The team really brings motivation to you because when you're running, when the girls are going then the boys are cheering for you or if the boys are running the girls team is cheering for them,” Galaz said. “That really motivates me and probably the other runners to have that audience and support.”

“Being able to run with my team and not just run alone definitely
helps me go further and helps me push myself because if I was just going to
practice every day alone I would definitely get burned out or mentally it would be too hard,” Coombs said. “Just seeing them work hard helps you work hard too and being able to help them get better and they help you get better it's a positive relationship.”

Coombs and Galaz have been at the top of the leaderboard, but senior Aiden Poppy is the glue on this team. Poppy is the boys team’s No. 2 runner and the team leader. He is an elite runner who also fills his role as teacher.

“I'm giving a lot of tips and advice to the younger kids,” Poppy said. “And I'm running with them as well and teaching them how to run. A lot of times kids don't really know how to run right. They run all out and they don't know how to conserve their energy or build themselves up to be a good distance runner. I'm kind of teaching them what Coach Nunez taught me because I was the same way once.”

Poppy had his own route to high-level running and it forms his desire to bring others with him.

Keep showing up

“I was a little bit of a bigger kid when I was younger,” Poppy said. “I really started to slim down after some swimming and then I tried playing soccer with a friend of mine. I kind of found out I wasn't bad at running. That next season
he went to cross country to train for soccer and so, since about the sixth grade, I've been running cross country.

“It's taken me a while to develop. I won't say that I was very fast starting out but I've developed into a really good runner because of Coach Nunez.”

Poppy sees a larger life lesson in running. It’s a lesson all of these young athletes are learning as they focus on the preparation and competition.

“I hope they learn that it's not always about the competition or the fastest,” Poppy said. “You can see all these videos of Olympians doing fast and crazy things and sure, they're very talented. They deserve a lot of credit, but they need to give themselves credit because they're out there also pushing themselves. I see those kids out there.”

It's the days when success is hard to envision that the running and training can have its greatest benefit.

“Watching them at first, it’s like, it's going to take a little bit of time, but after a couple months, they really pushed it more than I could have ever thought, so they need to give themselves credit,” Poppy said. “I see kids beat themselves up for having a rough race or even a rough day. They can't always be perfect. It's their best effort that counts every time. It’s easy to show up on the good days, but it's hard to show up on the workouts that suck and when you've been injured. The courage and the real grit come from showing up even after that stuff.”