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Martinez-Morales earns regional bid for second straight season
When Ashley Martinez-Morales suffered an ankle injury during the Clay City Invitational on Sept. 10 that forced the standout sophomore to remove herself from the race, most thought her season had likely come to an end.
But as she made incremental progress that allowed her to ride the stationary bike, the idea of a return popped into the mind of Martinez-Morales as well as Clay City girls cross country head coach Melanie Laswell.
The pair laid out a plan for her to return for the Southwestern Indiana Athletic Conference championship meet with the hope of being as close to her normal self by the time.
“The last month that I’ve been out, I was really sad inside because I was like, ‘I really might not be able to recover from this [injury] this year,’” said Martinez-Morales. “I was nervous and scared, but my parents, my coaches, my teammates and really the whole running community, they were all there and helped. I just trusted in God, knowing He has a plan. That helped me push through it.”
“She went awhile without being able to do anything other than be on the bike and missed quite a few meets. But she wanted to run in conference, so of course I said, ‘Yeah. We’ll try it.’ But she started entirely too fast and went to the ground a few times. I wasn’t sure she was going to make it, but she was able to finish,” said Laswell of Martinez-Morales.
And while there were some bumps in the road, that’s exactly where Martinez-Morales found herself when she took the start line at Saturday morning’s Terre Haute North Sectional at LaVern Gibson Championship Course.
Fighting butterflies in her stomach and the urge to press the gas to the floorboard as soon as the race got underway, Martinez-Morales ran the race she had hoped, finishing 18th overall with a time of 22:24 to clinch a spot in next weekend’s regional as an individual from a non-advancing team for the second straight season.
“Coming to the starting line, I was really nervous. I was wondering about our chances of making it to regionals … But I ended up having a better mindset after it got [started],” said Martinez-Morales. “I was just hoping to make it to regionals again. It’s really great making it two years in a row. I feel so much better about it now that I’ll have another week of training. I’m hoping to be back to where I was at the beginning of the season.”
“So, today I told her the goal was to survive the race,” explained Laswell. “I wanted her to go out a lot slower. She did that, but it was a struggle for her. It ended up working pretty well because she ended up with the time I had for her with what our plan was.”
While there was excitement inside Clay City’s tent after the race for Martinez-Morales, there was also some disappointment that began to set in at the same time as the Lady Eels (169) finished sixth in the team standings – eight points behind South Vermillion (161) – leaving them as the last team on the outside of the regional-bound programs.
Although as Laswell pointed out, this year’s team is full of young runners, several of whom put together strong performances on Saturday in their postseason debuts – Anna Duckwall, who finished 42nd with a time of 24:49, Sydney Lowdermilk, who finished 45th with a time of 25:13, and Shelby Hofmann, who finished 46th with a time of 25:31 – leaving the program in a good spot entering the 2025 campaign.
“Our goal was to get out as a team, but we were surprised a little bit,” said Laswell. “Still, three of our top four finishers today were freshmen who are still learning to race … We’ve got a lot coming back with promise for the future.”
But before the offseason work gets going, Martinez-Morales has another race to run at next week’s Brownsburg Regional. The goal for her? To get through it unscathed.
“It’s going to be different expectations just because of how long she was injured this year, so now the goal is for her to get through the race,” said Laswell.