2A Friday Snapshot

Hotchkiss's Cody Bartlett took the lead on lap one of the 800 and eventually wore at the resistance, claiming the title in 1:59.47. Photo by Alan Versaw.

If you were expecting Lyons (boys) and Paonia (girls) to win the 2A team titles, you are still looking good on your calls, but the girls race did she a little shift in momentum today.

We will start our discussion, however, with the boys race.

Lyons missed the 1-2-3 in the boys 3200, but did get a 1-2 from Marcel Such and Paul Roberts. Something similar might happen with the 1600 on Saturday, but we'll wait and see--and allow for the possbility of other teams making soome inroads into the point accumulation. There were still several preliminary rounds to be completed today and Lyons advanced several athletes comfortably through those rounds.

Hotchkiss made something of a run at Lyons today with Cody Bartlett's win in the 800, Keegan Palmer's third in the triple jump, and Mason Oxford's fifth in the discus, but Lyons still has a boatload of points lined up for Saturday. For Lyons, today was more of a setup day for what looks like a big push of event titles coming on Saturday.

Cousins Cody Howard of Hoehne and Daniel Weirich of Eads (contributed photo, above) claimed the triple jump and discus titles, respectively. Neither event title, however, figures to have a great deal of bearing on the overall team race.

If there was anything about today's results that would give you pause about Paonia's chances, that would likely be the 28 pole vault points thrown onto the board by Akron. For now, Akron holds the lead in the team standings with some serious pointage still to come on Saturday. With a couple of Saturday relays remaining and Allyson Vasquez running in the 100, 200, and 400 finals, figure that Akron will be a team to be reckoned with on Saturday.

Paonia, of course, is also loaded with relay talent and has a few events to look forward to on Satuday as well. At 48 points, Paonia is five points behind Akron at the close of Friday's events, and picked up points today from Ashley Van Vleet in the 800, Taylor Polson in the 3200, Morgan Hartigan in the shot put, and the 4x200 and SMR8 relays. Paonia missed what appeared to be some likely points in the long jump.

Also hanging around in the 2A girls mix is Lyons. The Lions currently sit in second with 52 points, one point behind Akron. The eight points for Miriam Roberts in the 3200 and the ten points for Nola Basey in the long jump kept Lyons very much alive in the title hunt today.

Meet records were lodged on the day by Jennifer Celis of Hotchkiss with a 2:13.46 800 meters and Akron's 50.31 in the 4x100 prelims.