The chase for nine straight mens cross conference championships is about to begin. “As a school, thats one of the things you need to accomplish. On the other side of the coin though, we are always looking ahead toward the state championships,” said coach Thom Hunt, who has his team preparing hard for this season after a 8th place finish at the state championships last season. Their first meet is this Friday at UCSD by the track. The women’s team runs at 4:00 p.m. and the men’s team runs at 4:45 p.m.

The women’s team finished 13th at the state championships last season. They are led by Kim Melechinsky and Alia Lacroix, who both were impressive in the state title last year. Melechinsky finished 34th with a time of 19:25, while Lacroix finished with a time of 21:05. They have many new runners that will look to replace Katie Coleman, Jewel Johnson and Gina Soria. Coleman and Johnson finished second and third, respectively, among Mesa runners at the state championships.

The men’s team is led by captains Steven Martinez and Albert Gamez. As freshmen last year they both had dominating performances including a seventh place finish at the state championships by Martinez, with a time of 20:27 in the four mile race while Gamez finished close behind with a time of 21:15. Steven and Albert both won two league championships in different track events last season. Martinez also was the cross country Pacific Coast Conference Individual of the Year. Having your first and third best runners returning on a team that finished eighth at state had gocollegetrack.com thinking big when they were doing their 2013 Southern California cross country preview, “2012 proved they belong with the best and hope to improve on an outstanding year. There is no question they have a great staff to guide them to a podium finish and bring home a title.”

The team loses its second best runner at state last year in Carlos Bojorquez who as a sophomore finished the state championship course in 20:44. Mesa also lost Devin Borjas, Havel Respes and Angel Sauceda. While it isn’t easy to replace veteran runners, they do have a new group of runners who will do their best to fill those voids.

The teams newcomers are Gilberto Beltran, Rodrigo Baza, Casey Walter, Michael Gasparro, Diego Ramos, Luis Rodriguez and Sal Salinas. All of them did well in high school and they are looking to take the next step in their running careers. Beltran ran a 17:19 at the Mt. Sac high school western championships which was 2.93 miles. Coach Hunt is intrigued by the talent that Beltran shows but he also said “We’ll learn more on Friday, sometimes you do workouts and then you do a race and things look a little different.” Another intriguing freshman is Rodrigo Baza who finished in 10th place at the San Diego CIF Championships last year with a three mile time of 16:37.

Aaron Hemphill joins Steven Martinez and Albert Gamez as the returning starters. Hemphill ran a 21:44 at state last year which was only 29 seconds behind Gamez. One can only guess how the rest of the lineup will look. A lot will become known on Friday at the UCSD Open Meet. The training for this season has been set up to challenge the runners. Every practice varies but they are either doing aerobics, hills, long runs or speed workouts. With the return of stars and newcomers working well together, Mesa has its goals set and they are working to win the conference and do as well as possible at the state championships.