Chona leads Cowboy XC on postseason push

Jesus Chona battles through the end of a race. (Courtesy Blake Davis)

Ever since he was a child, Jesus Chona has been known as Chuy. He’s so synonymous with the name that teammates, classmates and people around town just figure it’s his given name. However, upon researching he found that it came about when native Mexicans were taught Spanish by conquistadors and struggled to say “Christ.”

The locals simply said “Chuy,” therefore, many people with the name “Jesus” also carried the corresponding nickname. This includes Chuy Chona.

The freshman competed in the 800, 1600 and 3200-meter races in track, so Chona knew how to run. But he wasn’t experienced in the cross country arena. The distance, variety of tracks, turfs and conditions were entirely new.

“I had to be patient with my progress because this is my first year,” Chona said. “I’ve been learning how to trust the process and let the results take care of themselves. At the beginning of the season, I had high expectations. I wanted to do good, but [recently] things have really started to click. I feel like at the end of the season all the pieces have started to fall into place.”

When the Cowboys enter the Class 3A Region 2 race on Oct. 23 at Monument Valley Park in Colorado Springs they will be seeded No. 5 on both the boys and girls side. They’ll need to slightly outperform their previous times to advance to state. The boys are chasing Lamar and the girls are in pursuit of Alamosa. They’re just a few points shy of fourth place and GHS coach Blake Davis said the opportunities to advance are present. The race is hosted by Manitou Springs High School.

“Our message is we need to take care of all the things we can take care of and be ourselves,” Davis said. “If we do that, it sets us up to sneak into state as a team. That’s our message and that’s our goal.”

In order to prepare for regionals, the Cowboys competed at Monte Vista on Oct. 17. Davis has the Cowboys primed for a playoff run. He wants to keep the momentum they’ve built rolling.

“Running last week will help us stay in rhythm,” Davis said. “If you don’t race for 13 or 14 days, it’s hard to get back in that rhythm. For us, I thought that we would be better off running the week before regionals. We are using that momentum to propel ourselves forward."