4A-5A Girls: Who Needs Their Entire Roster? Certainly not Battle Mountain.
Mountain Vista and Broomfield weren't there. But that was about all that was missing. Toeing narrow boxes on the start line were Battle Mountain, Air Academy, 3A Peak to Peak, Palmer Ridge, Monarch, Rocky Mountain, and Rampart.
There would be no shortage of stiff competition. And, most teams seemed pleasantly untouched--unless Naomi Harding's absence fell into this category--by the day's ACT testing.
Even without the blonder of the Harding sisters, though, Battle Mountain was able to control their race destiny. Lizzy Harding pushed close to the front early. She would not be able to overtake the Peak to Peak tandem of Quinn McConnell and Anna Shults at the front, but no matter. Harding established a beachhead for the Battle Mountain scoring, and the rest did what they needed to do.
Elizabeth Constien eventually worked herself into fourth place. Grace Johnson, Kaela Fahrney, and Brogan Murray each managed top-25 finishes in a loaded field, and the deed was done. And so it was that Battle Mountain, even running a bit short-handed, put 25 points of margin on second-place Palmer Ridge.
And, if you haven't been paying close attention, Palmer Ridge has emerged as a pretty decent team. Saturday, the Bears were led by freshman Isabella Prosceno in 11th. The balance of the scoring five took only until 26th place to cross the line.
Peak to Peak managed a third-place finish. Although McConnell and Shults went 1-2, the Pumas absorbed too many points at 3, 4, and 5 to stay in the team title hunt.
Air Academy slipped from contention at this meet as Tatum Miller, the typical lead Kadet, fell back to 28th place. That left Paige Embaugh to do the heavy lifting for the Kadets. Embaugh finished sixth, but this one goes down as an off day for the Kadets, who finished fifth in the team tally.
Monarch wedged in between Peak to Peak and Air Academy, but at no point in the race were Liz Hogan and company in a position to make a bid for the team title.
Battle Mountain and, to a lesser degree, Palmer Ridge were simply too much for the rest of the field.
LATE CORRECTION: Naomi Harding was running, but was toward the back of the Battle Mountain group of girls chilling under the instruction of Coach Parish. The Huskies did, however, have at least one key runner out entirely with ACT testing.