Photo coming soon to this space.
A lot of things changed when a baton went rolling across the track to the inside curb in the 5A boys 4x200. With the errant baton went Fountain-Fort Carson's dominance of the sprint relays. And a meet that seemed like F-FC's to lose suddenly became a lot more competitive.
Make no mistake, Fountain-Fort Carson is still very much alive and in the mix for the big trophy. It's just that the playing field might be a bit more level going into Saturday than had been anticipated. Fountain-Fort Carson brings only five points into Saturday's finals and it's going to take a lot of things going well for them to catch up with and surpass all of Cherry Creek, Cherokee Trail, Fort Collins, and Grandview (the other four teams with the most favorable positions moving into Saturday).
Cherry Creek got big points from a 1-4 in the 800 by Daniel Book and Shane Rhodes. Prospects for Saturday, however, are not as bright.
Cherokee Trail picked up a big win in the 4x200. BothCreek and CT have some entries in finals for Saturday, but Cherokee Trail has more. Brandon Singleton and Jaylyn Mars both have big sprint opportunities before them. CT will need to score big in the sprints and the two relays left to be contested on Saturday. Cherry Creek brings two outstanding relays but, truthfully, not a whole lot more into Saturday's finals. Despite their current lead, their position is precarious.
Fort Collins needs to hope for magic from Ryan Rogers in the 300 hurdles, Jacob Hanks in the shot put, and a couple of relays. That's a rather narrow set of opportunities for getting back into the title race.
For the girls, Cherry Creek's lead appears fairly commanding at this point. Arapahoe, Fort Collins, and Cherokee Trail are not yet beyond hope, but Cherry Creek goes into the last day of competition with a lot of reason to be hopeful.
Jordyn Colter set things right again with a dominating win of the 800 on Friday. She'll be coming back looking to make it best two out of three in the 1600 on Saturday. Ashley Miller sets up for two hurdle finals. Both relays look strong heading into finals. Emily Romo has a place on the starting line of both the 100 and 200. Nobody else has that many gilt-edged opportunities to throw points onto the board on Saturday.
Of those remaining in the hunt, Cherokee Trail has the most remaining opportunities to close up on Cherry Creek. But CT doesn't have a 4x400 and only has places in three individual track events. It's definitely an uphill battle that the Cougars face going into Saturday.
Fort Collins does have both relays still alive, but little in the way of hopes for large point individual events.
It would definitely appear that Creek is closing in on a title, but we'll let their performances make the final determination on that. Most often, calls made too soon are bad calls.