ALBUQUERQUE – New personal records were set for a handful of area athletes on the first day of the New Mexico state track meet.

In Class 3A, Navajo Prep sophomore Elijah England improved his PR by over 23 seconds in the 3200-meter race while Laguna Acoma junior Tagoya Pedro bettered his by 25 seconds at the 2A level.

Both runners were crowned state champs it their respective classifications as both runners ran sub-10 minutes with Pedro winning his race in 9:43.09 while England captured his in 9:56.58.

In the field events, Santa Fe Indian School’s Corey Bird and Zuni’s Emily Zunie also improved their marks with Bird winning state in the 3A boys long jump with a 21-feet, 6.5-inch effort, which was 10 feet above his seed mark of 20-08.5.

Zunie, meanwhile, placed fourth in the 3A girls long jump with a 16-06.5 mark, which is a new school record. Her previous best was 16-feet.

In the 3A two-mile race, England trailed Santa Fe St. Michael’s Everett Kuhn for a couple of laps before he took the lead for good on the sixth lap as he cruised to the win.

“It means a lot, but you have to stay humble because there are other people who are better than you,” England said of winning the state crown.

As for going under 10 minutes for the first time this season, England initially thought he was going to go over, but in the final stretch he looked ahead at the time board entering his final lap and gave it all he could so that he could get under.

“I saw my time coming in, so I kicked it in, and I got it,” he said.

England won the race by over 15 seconds with teammate Kenai Begay taking second at 10:12.53 while Kuhn clocked in at 10:21.82 for third.

In the 2A race, Pedro tested the waters for the first mile as he trailed Oak Grove junior Joshua Marquez. But as they reached the fifth lap, the Laguna Acoma runner gained full control as he won his race by a large margin, too.

“I just wanted to see how the field played out, and I ran about 70 seconds in my first lap,” Pedro said. “And then Joshua took (the lead) about 800 in, and I started pacing off him.

“He kept that pretty quick pace and about 1,500 meters he started to slow down,” he added. “That is when I made move and I had to because I wanted a fast time.”

With one lap to go, Pedro saw his time of 8:38 as he was looking to go after the state record of 9:37.84, which was set by Navajo Pine’s Galvin Curley in 2019.

“I was about a minute off the state record, so I was pushing it on that last lap,” Pedro said. “I was trying to chase that record, but I fell short. It’s definitely attainable and it’s something to work for next season.”

This was Pedro’s second time going sub-10 this year and he credits his workout regimen for achieving that.

“I feel like I’m in good shape and it showed with my PR against some good competitors,” Pedro said. “The runners in Class 2A have grown significantly and with their competitiveness I was able to PR at 9:43, which is a good achievement.”

Pedro finished ahead of Pecos runners Carlos Ragland (10:06.23) and Thomas Garcia (10:08.57) as they finished second and third, respectively, while Marquez took fourth at 10:15.64.

In the long jump, Bird trailed St. Michael’s Kamal Stith heading into their last jump as Stith set the bar with a 21-01 effort. But Bird, who entered he state meet seeded fourth, surpassed that mark by 5.5 inches in his final attempt that earned him his first state crown.

“For me, it means that I’m living up to my expectations,” Bird said of winning state. “I was here my freshman year and I placed fourth in the 200 and 400.

“I was racing against juniors and seniors, and I knew that I could come back and win state,” he added. “Right now, this long jump is a start.”

In girls long jump, Zunie was nearly scratched from her event as she was focused on her running events.

“I haven’t jump here at state since my eighth-grade year, so me and my coach’s kind of forgot that I was supposed to do long jump and (the meet officials) were calling me to the pit,” Zunie said. “I got to the pit, and it was too late to get any run throughs, so my first two jumps were really bad. I was jumping off on my opposite foot, so I got really nervous.”

Those first two attempts were in the 14-foot range but on her third jump she leaped 15-06 to make the finals as she made the necessary adjustments.

“From there, I started to jump into the 16s and I just progressed,” she said. “I’m just so happy that I made the finals because I wouldn’t have had those other attempts to break the school record.”