The Small School Story
The 3A crowd was mostly non-existent at this meet owing, at least in large part, to the scheduling of the Tri-Peaks League meet on the day after. Two 3A schools that showed up, however, did pretty well for themselves. That would be Alamosa and Elizabeth. More on that in a moment.
The meet also featured a 2A showdown between Lyons, Rocky Ford, and Heritage Christian Academy. Bear Creek Regional Park is a bit of a travel date for all three of these schools, but you take your showdowns where you can find them. And, Rocky Ford tends not to have a lot of meet options closer than Colorado Springs to begin with.
In varsity girls, Lyons was the dominant 2A force and Elizabeth the dominant 3A force. Although Elizabeth's fifth-place finish was only one place ahead of Alamosa, it was a very convincing one place ahead. At the first two places, Ashten Loeks edged Lilly Lavier, and Brenna Jones edged Tara Sowards, but the closely-contested spots were done at that point. Elizabeth beat Alamosa at every scoring position.
Lyons roughed up (figuratively speaking) the 2A competition. Neither Rocky Ford nor Heritage Christian Academy was ever really in the hunt. They may have been on a Lion hunt, but they were never close enough to have a shot. Lyons finished with 221 team points, led by Georgia Barone in 30th at 21:10, to 400 for HCA and 402 for Rocky Ford.
That's a lot of gap to close between now and October 28.
The small-school boys story of the meet, of course, was the presence of Levi Kilian in the varsity race.
Whether or not you have feelings about that, Kilian makes an enormous difference in the HCA scoring order. Still, it was a very close battle between Lyons and HCA. If you score three, it looks like HCA takes the win. If you score five, as this meet did, then Lyons prevails over HCA.
Your detailed breakdown of the top three for both teams goes like this: Isaac Roberts (4th, 16:26) over Levi Kilian (13th, 17:02), Seth Bruxvoort (25th) over Field Soosloff (38th), and Isaiah Bowsher (35th) over Colton Jonjak-Plahn (41st). This one is far from over, but the upper hand seems to reside, at least for the moment, with the team in green.
In terms of 3A, Alamosa--despite being down Richard Sais--narrowly prevailed over Elizabeth, while downing Woodland Park and Pagosa Springs by substantial margins. Alamosa was led, as they have been all season, by Elijah DeLaCerda, who finished 14th in 17:03.
LATE NOTE: It is possible that Elizabeth's team score may not be accurate. I have word that one runner appears in a different place in the standings than where he actually finished.