Columbine's Will Kincaid made it look easy at the Lori Fitzgerald Memorial. All photos by Alan Versaw.
With the opening of each new year of high school cross country comes a changing of the order. Not everywhere, but here and there.
This weekend has brought just such a changing of the order to Colorado high school cross country.
While there's still a lot of season left to finalize things, Colorado's new king (and queen) of the hill appears to be aptly named: Monarch. And, you had better be hill-qualified if you have aspirations of bringing home the team trophy this year.
While most of us thought Boulder was running away with the 5A girls race, Monarch's white singlets slipped by with little notice. In the end, it was a three-point victory for Monarch over their in-district rivals. Whether Monarch can keep the magic brewing all season long is a question that must wait another eight weeks to be answered. On this day, however, Monarch was hitting on all cylinders.
It should be noted that Boulder's second-place finish came without the services of Kelsey Lakowske. Lakowske was one of several names (mostly girls) conspicuously absent from the meet. It may be that the long list of absences had something to do with the holiday weekend. Or, it could be that I'm just making that up.
The Fort Collins girls didn't exactly slip out of view, but they joined Highlands Ranch, Cherry Creek, and Pine Creek as contenders who appear, at this stage of the game, to be a step or two behind the two Boulder County powers. Many people, especially those tuned in to the rumors, expected a little more of a showing from Loveland, but the Indians finished in 7th, 42 points behind Pine Creek in sixth and well out of contention on this date.
The individual race was yet another a show of domination by Eleanor Fulton. In temperatures pushing 90 degrees, Fulton was unchallenged. Kailie Hartman rolled up a few places in the second half of the race to gain second, and Rikki Gonzales made a late charge past Heather Bates to lay claim to third.
While the Monarch girls ran somewhat of a stealth race, you couldn't miss what Monarch's boys did. Wearing essentially the same white singlets as the girls, Monarch's white shirts were altogether too apparent up front in a convincing victory in the 5A boys race. In the 5A boys race, round one goes to the Coyotes.
While Columbine's Will Kincaid was putting space on the pack of pursuers, the Monarch representatives held steady and maintained their places within the pack. When the first four came through at 5-13-15-22, the damage was done. Fort Collins and Heritage finished in second and third at a more-than-respectful distance.
Kirk Webb's 5th-place finish in 16:35 paced the Coyotes. If Monarch can stay healthy, they will be very difficult to beat.
Historically, sweeps of the boys and girls state titles have been rare in 5A. You have to begin to think that it's at least a possibility this year. Coping with the attention that gets focused on you along the way is part of the bargain.
Dakota Ridge's transfer, Charles Rasmussen, ran way off the front in the JV race. Had he been in the varsity lineup for the Eagles, their placing would have improved dramatically, but not enough to overtake either Fort Collins or Heritage.
Connor Winter was out of the lineup for Arapahoe, but it wouldn't have mattered on this day. The Warriors were well out of contention and probably a little spent from their own invitational on Friday.
The 4A boys race took a few twists and turns along the way. Cheyenne Mountain posted a solid team victory (and that much came as no surprise), but what was happening behind them provided the intrigue.
So, what was happening behind them?
First off, a team from Nebraska stole second place. There is likely a large contingent of 4A folks plenty happy to know that they don't need to deal with North Platte on October 30.
Extracting North Platte from the standings leaves Pueblo South as the number two Colorado-based team. And, I think it's fair to say not many people saw that one coming. Maybe Clint Zundel. A forum post earlier in the week hinted that there may have been a resurgence in Pueblo's cross country fortunes in the offing.
We all knew about South's Brandon Lange--and he lived up to the pre-race billing with a second-place finish--but he has good support on the rest of the varsity lineup this fall. There's a stirring among the Colts.
Evergreen showed they're better than last year's state finish indicated with a fourth-place finish led by Jackson Sayler.
Coronado, newly arrived from 5A and competing about 16 hours after running in the Arapahoe Invitational on Friday, finished in fifth. Broomfield finished sixth with a lineup that seemed to be missing an Eagle or two.
Palmer Ridge's Spencer Wenck dominated the individual race, winning in 16:09. Kudos to Wenck for what was obviously a very productive summer.
An interesting uniform design for the Evergreen girls. All hail the wonders of sublimation uniforms!
4A girls provided the tightest overall team race on the day and also the most bizarre set of uniforms ever to appear at a high school meet in Colorado.
Never a team to be enslaved to tradition where uniforms are concerned, Evergreen brought their girls to the meet in, well, um... something that looked a lot like pajamas! But if you win, who cares? And, if Evergreen does win, maybe the pajamas look becomes the newest rage in girls high school cross country.
For the time being, though, Evergreen came up five places short of winning, but still within shouting distance of the leaders of the pack--Greeley Central. All told, Greeley Central, Cheyenne Mountain, Mullen, Vista Ridge, Niwot and Evergreen all finished between 158 and 207 points. Realistically, any of these teams is good enough to make a serious run at the title.
Cheyenne Mountain's Dani Grossman welcomed back the cross country season with an individual title in 19:45.
And add the names of Maura O`Brien (Evergreen), Kaiti Shepherd (Niwot), and Kali Maxwell (Cheyenne Mountain) to the "conspicuously absent" list. It's difficult to fully assess how these absences may have influenced the overall team standings.
Surprisingly, the Thompson Valley girls appeared to be in disarray at this meet. If the Eagles are to keep their streak of top-two finishes alive, they're going to need a few better days than they had today.
A little farther down the list of team finishers was Moffat County. And, with Moffat County comes yet another name on the list of the conspicuously absent--Maddy Jourgensen. Ms. Jourgensen was spotted at the meet, however, toting around a bag of ice. Moffat County's mediocre finish on the day was probably also influenced by the fact that this was the second meet in a back-to-back affair for them. Honestly, the Bulldogs looked a lot more like themselves at Arapahoe on Friday.
3A boys will have to deal with a new kid on the block. And the new kid on the block made a first impression by sticking it to everyone else in the classfication.
Alamosa went out fairly hard early and never looked back--not that there's any need to look back when you can post a team score of 42 points. Chad Palmer and Jordan Wehe both logged top-ten finishes for Alamosa, with the next three all finishing in the top 18.
For this writer/coach, the experience of getting thumped by Larry Zaragoza's Alamosa team was a little too reminiscent of getting thumped by Larry Zaragoza's Centauri teams back when I was in high school. Sometimes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The Classical Academy made a bid late in the race to make it a little more interesting, but still finished 18 points back of Alamosa. Josh Simkins won the race for the Titans in 16:55.
TCA's Josh Simkins gets a sidewards glance from Telluride's Ty Williams as he makes his pass on the second time up Powerline Climb.
Telluride posted a very nice performance by finishing fourth in the team standings. Ty Williams took second overall. Keep in mind that Telluride is a 2A school. The next 2A school in the standings was Rocky Ford at 15th. If you're looking for an early favorite in 2A boys, look no further.
Among 2A-3A girls, it was a big outing for The Classical Academy. At one mile, Shelby Stableford wrested the lead away from Alamosa's Jenny DeSouchet and spent the rest of the race creating a trail of dust for the pursuers. By the time she was crossed the finish line at 19:41, Stableford had opened a gap of more than 30 seconds on the remainder of the field. TCA finished their scoring at 5, 6, and 8 for a total of 20 points.
Estes Park, minus the services of Kim Hansen, was 74 points back in second. Alamosa, a pre-season favorite in 3A, was without the services of Nicole DeSouchet and finished all the way back in 14th.
The top 2A finisher in the field was Nederland with 157, but Lyons finished only one place behind the Panthers.
Look for some serious reordering of the rankings this week--in almost all classifications.