When you've had a high school career like Kayla Young, the last campaign around the cross country courses revisits a lot of old triumphs.
And, one of the most significant of those visitations happened last night at Denver's City Park, where Kayla Young ran unthreatened to her third DPS meet title. The last, and only. DPS girl to defeat Kayla Young was Darby Gilfillan during Young's freshman year.
It also marked Young's 25th high school career cross country win, something of a milestone in and of itself.
Young's freshman teammates Esther Cornish and Isla Anderson claimed places 2 and 4 en route to a three-point team triumph over Denver South, 32 to 35.
There was a similar landmark effort on the boys side as well. Denver East's Harrison Scudamore claimed his third DPS meet title in as many attempts with a 16:36 winning time. That also marks four consecutive DPS meet titles for a Denver East runner (I do not seem to have results for the 2012 DPS meet, so the string could be longer than that).
Unlike Young, however, Scudamore would be unable to lead his teammates to a team title. Denver East had to settle for second with 58 points. Denver South, with top-10 finishes from Yonatan Kefle, Henok Berhane, Ritsom Adhanom, and Henry Cargile, cruised to an easy team title with 35 points.
Next up on the schedule for most, and possibly all, DPS programs are regional contests.