Alil Washington is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Tempe High School for AZPreps365.com

Brothers from Tempe High School are pushing themselves and their cross-country team to achieve greatness.

Juniors Armando and Brandon Lopez Bojorquez are among the Buffaloes' top runners. Armando, who finished 35th in the state meet Nov. 2 with a time of 17 minutes, 43.8 seconds, earlier ran a season-best 17:16 at the Paradise Honors Meet. Brandon ran a season-best 19:08 at the AIA sectional meet Oct. 23.

“It’s actually awesome coaching brothers, and they really do push one another,” head cross-country coach Brandon Thompson said. “Each one wants to win, and each one wants the other to do well.”

Despite the 2-minute gap in their best times this season, the Lopez Bojorquez brothers still have a significant impact on each other, pushing each other to be their best and not give up on themselves when things get rough on the course.

“I am willing to push ourselves, knowing that if we do well, we can improve with each other’s assistance, and if we do perform well, we can go further into cross-country meets, as in going to state,” Armando said.

For Brandon, knowing that Armando has always been a couple of minutes ahead of him at meets has fueled his competitive spirit and pushed him to push Armando even harder.

“I push my brother by always reminding him about practice,” Brandon said. “My competitiveness drives me towards being a better runner to eventually catch up to my brother.”

Armando tends to strategize his running pace with Brandon in mind during hard practice days. This is so he can let Brandon get a taste of what the fastest pace feels like, so he can further improve.

“When we are practicing, I try to push a little ahead of him for him to push at a slightly faster pace,” Armando said. “A strategy I have is to try and run faster and try to push him to run a little faster so he can get used to a faster pace.”

“I think it’s inspiring and encourages others on the team to try harder and harder, and each brother is much different than the other with different personalities, but the same goals,” Tempe teammate Nathaniel Leon Alvarez said. “Even though they’re the fastest runners, we still hold them to the same standard as every other runner. Overall, they’re pretty hardworking and always bring a positive vibe to practice.”

Armando and Brandon both have what it takes to get to the next level of running, and hope their willingness to push one another when they come across rigorous obstacles in practice or at meets will send them a very long way in the sport.

“This sport definitely got me closer to my brother by pushing each other during hard workouts,” Brandon said. 

“Competing in the same sport got me and Brandon much closer because we can collaborate much more with an activity that interests us,” Armando said.