Top Moment of the Meet (2)
Broomfield Keeps Rolling
After a victory by a single point last week in Washington Park, the girls of Broomfield returned to their usual script of dominance.
Juniors Madison Mooney and Ivy Gonzales led the girls in blue by claiming spots in a sizable front pack that also contained Audrey Lookner of Monarch, Allison Mann of Liberty, and freshmen Shae Henley of ThunderRidge and Joslin Blair of Eagle Valley.
Similar to the boys race, the opening pace was furious with Lookner leading after a first mile of 5:40, and, just like the boys race, the pace proved unsustainable for most of the front pack.
For Mooney the race looked eerily similar to her finish at Washington Park. Last weekend she overtook her teammate late in the last quarter mile to surge to a comfortable victory. This week it was Lookner and Henley who fell victim to Mooney's patient racing style. In the last half mile Mooney opened up an eight-second lead to take the win with a 17:59. She was the only sub-18 finisher among the girls.
Lookner fell back to seventh as underclassmen Henley, Lakewood sophomore Carley Bennett, and Blair placed 2-3-4.
The theme of patience extended to Broomfield's four and five runners as Vanessa Kort and Laura Thompson ran noticeably faster through the second half of the course to 16th and 17th place finishes
Thompson mentioned that the prudent pacing had been a point of emphasis recently for the Eagles. "We definitely worked on going out smarter, so we could really start picking it up that second half."
Kort and Thompson's notched Broomfield's point tally at 54. Monarch, who completed the sweep of second place team trophies, scored 126. No team managed to get two runners finished before Broomfield scored five.