Muleshoe 1600-meter relay team (Nathan Martens, Noah Cantu, Mauricio Herrera and Daniel Sianez)
On the track: Muleshoe’s 2023-204 athletic season ended in tremendous fashion during the UIL Class 3A state meet at Mike A. Myers Stadium last Thursday.
In the final event of the year, the team of Nathan Martens, Noah Cantu, Mauricio Herrera and Daniel Sianez put themselves into school history with one of the more epic performances that left fans on their feet.
A Hollywood script couldn’t be written better than what underdog Muleshoe did to win gold in the mile relay.
Martens, Cantu and Herrera all ran strong legs to keep the Mules in contention, but by the time the final stick was passed to Sianez the senior was able to steal the show with his spectacular speed.
With some work to do, Sianez turned on the jets during his 400-meters especially on the final curve and in the final 100-meters passed Gunter’s Reid Robertson and University City Randolph’s Lee Mcmooain to cross the finish line in first place giving the Mules the unbelievable victory with a new school-record gold medal winning time of 3:18.39.
Coach Aaron Simon “I’m extremely proud of what those guys did. All four of them did what they needed to do to get the win. All four of them had very strong legs and took care of business. Daniel is just Daniel. He got after it and there wasn’t anyone going to stop him. I knew the entire team was going to keep him in it and let him go get it for us. This was very special for us as a program and for the school. It’s amazing.”
Martens: “I was proud of this team. A couple of years ago we were running 3:36. We pushed ourselves all the time we all dedicated and did what it took to get better in practice. We all wanted to go that extra mile and show what we were about. I think for us and Muleshoe winning this race shows our toughness. We live by that toughness and take pride in it.”
