Chasing Brynn Siles
The girls individual race was interesting for a whole heck of a lot longer than it usually has been this season. Brynn Siles has essentially been running away from people all season with nobody besides herself and course records to work on. If you follow cross country in the great beautiful land to the north, you may have heard of Aubrey Frentheway from Cheyenne Central and Abigail Whitman from Laramie. Evidently nobody told them on the bus ride down that it is acceptable to let Siles take off and do her thing. They were right on Siles' tail at the mile and most of the second mile.
In the end, though, Siles did was she has done to everyone else. She wore down the competition until nobody but the course record was left. Siles clipped the line in 17:55 today, a scant two seconds short of fellow Legacy legend Emma Gee's course record. Still, Siles ran an impressive race. Behind her, there were some interesting developments as well. Perhaps sensing a bit of urgency to not let every trophy cross the state line, Stephanie Carrasco from Thornton went from fourth to second in the final quarter mile with a furious kick to finish in 17:58. Frentheway held on for third. Claire Pauley of Arvada West was fourth, and Abigail Whitman from Laramie was fifth.
The girls meet title ended up being a bit of a wild ride as well. For a second, it looked a little bit like Cheyenne Central was going to run roughshod over the meet. With Frentheway in at third and teammate Claudia Miller in sixth, things started to look good, if you like red. Not succumbing to anything though, Arvada West followed Claire Pauley in fourth with Katie Doucette and Amber Valdez in ninth and tenth.
Emma Brownell and Faith Meredith from Central answered in 16th and 19th. Civianna Gallegos from Arvada West crossed next in 21st. Through four runners, Central and Arvada West were deadlocked at 44 points. Back in the pack, it was going to come down to whose number five would finish first. It doesn't get any tighter than that. In the results there are two girls whose time reads 20:13, McKell Brenchley from Central and Lucy Schroeder from Arvada West. Same time, but Brenchley crossed the line first. 73 points for Central, 74 for Arvada West, and another big trophy headed up to buy fireworks.