With the start of the 2010 cross country season just around the corner Douglas High School cross country coach David Bond has announced this will be his final season.

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During his 28 years as coach Bond has coached several state champion teams as well as individual runners.

But it looks as if it’s his last season that may be his most challenging.

“We had small numbers last year but not this small,” the coach said.

Cross Country practice began Aug. 9 and for the first week Coach Bond only had seven runners out two teams. The boys’ team barely had the required six while the girls had just one runner out Kayla Arnejo.

Since that time Bond has picked up one more runner for the boys’ squad and has landed five female runners giving him a full squad for the girls.

“We have very few returning runners and small numbers,” the coach said. “The athletes we have out are very pleasant people; very easy to work with, very coachable. Our emphasis this year is making them faster runners.”

For the Bulldogs Bond says Alfonso Mejia, Ricky Larez and Thomas Fredrickson are the three returners.

“Alfonso appears at this time to be the leading runner,” Coach Bond said. “He has sprint speed, ran all year around and went to a summer running camp in Pinetop.”

Larez also went to the summer camp and is holding down the No. 2 spot at this time, the coach added who went on to say Fredrickson is much improved from last year and has run year around.

“He should be a solid varsity performer,” the coach said. “We have two seniors for the first time, Brian Meza and Leonel Pereyda. They are big strong runner and based on their early efforts, should improve rapidly.”

Bond said sophomore Francisco Grijalva is running for the first time and in two weeks as picked up his pace considerably.

The lone freshman out this year is Raul Montano.

“He is a worker and is improving his pace,” the coach said. “It takes at least eight weeks to show a lot of progress in a physical fitness sport so we expect to start slowly and qualify for state in November.”

For the girls’ squad Bond said Arnejo is the only runner with any kind of experience.

“She is energized for the season and is leading the team at this point,” he said.

Joining her will be junior Marilyn Grijalva who does have some running experience from track.

“She also put in a lot of summer practice and attended the summer running camp in Pinetop,” the coach said. “She’s a dedicated runner and along with Kayla, leads the practices.”

Stephany Romero, Chanell Valenzuela and Michelle Valenzuela, all juniors, are in their first two weeks of running and have been cheerfully doing their workouts.

The lone freshman, Karla Loreto, suffered through the first hot, humid days of practice but has quickly shown some adaption to the weather and has improved at practice.

“Because of our small numbers and shortage of veterans we’re emphasizing steady personal improvements which may come together and help us qualify for state,” the coach said. “We’ve had extremely high heat and humidity so we have had to back down in our practices due to weather that could be dangerous to our athletes.”

Coach Bond said the competition in the 4A Region has some really good programs that are led by some dedicated coaches who have very talented runners.

“Those teams do nothing but run and they’re hard to beat,” he said. “We want to take our kids as far as we can.”

Manny Ramirez is back to assist Bond again with the DHS cross country program and former runner Nicole Mariscal is serving as a volunteer assistant.

Coach Bond said Mariscal would be his pick for his successor but that’s up to the board to make the final decision.

“She’s a very good track coach, she’s a very responsible person,” he said. “She has a lot of interest. I think she would be very successful.”

The soon to be retired coach said he’s had a lot of fun but its time for somebody else to take over.

“I’ll still probably help next year as a volunteer one or two days a week,” Bond said.

The DHS runners kick off their season Sept. 4 at the Sue Fletcher Invitational at Buena.

“We’re not really ready for it but it will give us a starting reference from which to improve,” the coach said.

Coach Bond said he will take runners through Labor Day.

“We can easily handle two or three times the numbers,” he said. “We don’t cut athletes as long as they have good attendance and are making a determined effort to improve.”