Emma Abernethy picked up her first high school cross country meet title at the Stony Creek Golf Course on Thursday. Colorado Track XC file photo by Alan Versaw.
It takes a certain amount of audacity to schedule your home meet one day before Liberty Bell and two days before St. Vrain. But, that's exactly what Standley Lake did.
And, it turned out to be a nice little strategy. The Gators got a decent-sized meet out of it with 20 teams showing up to race, and top runner Emma Abernethy picked up that elusive first meet title in the process. Abernethy's 20:10 ran eight seconds ahead of Coronado's Elana Muzzy in second.
It was not, however, enough to hold off a hold-charging Coronado team for the meet title. Coronado posted 34 team points to 60 for Standley Lake in second. After Muzzy, Coronado sent Chloe Cassens, Madeline Moreland, and Faith Roth across the finish line in the top ten before Standley Lake could get a second runner through. And, that pretty much sealed the deal on the team scoring.
For good measure, Coronado also dominated the JV girls race, parking seven runners in the top ten positions.
As dominant as the win was for the Coronado girls, it paled in comparison to the dominance exhibited by the Arvada West boys.
A West put Josh Campbell, Max Sevcik, Colin Berndt, and Justin Andrade across the finish line before anyone standing in the vicinity saw any color except purple. It's difficult to lose when you own the 1-2-3-4 part of the scoring, and Arvada West didn't make this an exception. Andres Perez crossed in ninth at an even 18 minutes, thus securing the title. Campbell's winning time shut down the clock at 16:57.
Arvada West didn't merely beat everyone else; you could put all other assembled teams in the same singlet, score them as a single team, and Arvada West still wins, 19-36. Aside from Arvada West, only Coronado was able to manage to squeeze as many as two runners into the top ten.
