The biggest meet in the region last week? Hands down, that would be the Rio Rancho Jamboree. Photo by Blake Wood.
It's once again time for our weekly tour of the Southwest, trying to uncover the best of cross country across the region.
Nevada
Elko held an invitational on Friday, and Elko was recently a very competitive girls team. But the results coming out of this meet indicate either that the course was well over on the challenging end of the spectrum or the Elko is down a bit from what they've been the last couple of years. From this distance, it's hard to be precise about that, but we'll keep an eye out to see what happens in coming weeks. It's easy to think of Nevada as divided between Las Vegas and Reno, but teams like Elko remind us there's more to the big, trapezoidal state next to California than the two big metropolitan areas.
In the Reno area, Sparks hosted a meet that was dominated by Galena on the boys side and Tahoe-Truckee on the girls side. Tahoe-Truckee is a California school. And while North Tahoe and South Tahoe are California schools that compete in Nevada, I do not believe the same holds for Tahoe-Truckee. Somebody who understands Nevada/California border school alignments better than I do, please feel welcome to fill me in. In any case, their were no Southwest regional championship race kind of performances coming out of this meet.
The Las Vegas area appears to have been quiet this last weekend, but all of southern Nevada should be busy the next three weekends with divisions, regions, and state falling in line for the next three weekends.
Arizona
There were meets in Arizona last weekend, but they're mostly keeping the results to themselves. What we can say is that the Mesa Mountain View girls manhandled (is it okay to say that?) the Mesa City Championships. We already knew MMV was good, and they did nothing to debunk that impression, though it probably wasn't their top performance of the season. The Mesa Mountain View boys also took a turn at impressing the regional gallery by putting five guys in at 16:50 or under and easily winning the team contest.
Arizona's biggest guns, however, were likely hunkering down in anticipation of the Mt. SAC Cross Country Invitational this weekend. The meet calls itself the world's largest cross country invitational, and I'm not inclined to disagree.
New Mexico
The Land of Enchantment made things very convenient for us this weekend. Aside from two or three small meets scattered around the state,everyone was just a little north of Albuquerque for the Rio Rancho Jamboree. Other than a meet name than implies everyone will be there, the attraction of this meet is that it's a preview of the state course.
Albuquerque Academy didn't need a preview and rested their top guys and girls last weekend.
Of the teams seeking out previews, things went pretty much according to form, except that Los Alamos--which held out their top runner--slipped a bit in the boys championship division.
Eldorado successfully parried all threats and finished with a comfortable 28-point margin over second-place Los Alamos. All other schools were trying to be closer than they appeared in the rearview mirror. Team scoring went Eldorado - 60, Los Alamos - 88, La Cueva - 150, Rio Rancho - 171, etc.
Among the boys, Rio Rancho continues to beat everyone in sight except Albuquerque Academy. As we noted earlier, though, AA wasn't available to beat at this meet. This may have been Rio Rancho's best showing in a few weeks. Even a fully-loaded Los Alamos team would not have caught the Rams on their home course. Cleveland finished second to Rio Rancho, continuing the season-long pattern of outcomes between the two schools.
Zuni, a small school program that has turned in some very nice performances thus far this season was a bit outmatched by the top end of the 4A and 5A boys competition in the Jamboree championship race.
Colorado
It was regionals week in Colorado and all the top teams went their ways to separate regions. The Monarch, Fort Collins, and Cherry Creek girls all easily won their regions (5A Region 3, 5A Region 4, and 5A Region 2, respectively), setting up the big showdown at state this weekend. Mountain Vista had a little bit of a sluggish performance at 5A Region 5, but prevailed easily nevertheless.
Broomfield's boys and Niwot's girls showed nicely at 4A Region 3, as both schools elevated the value of their stock with these efforts. And, take note that Niwot's Elise Cranny went sub-17 again at this regional. Air Academy looked very strong in 4A Region 2, winning both titles there. And, on and on across the state it went, with nice showings from Coronado's boys, Cheyenne Mountain's girls, Battle Mountain's girls, Mountain View's girls, Boulder's boys, and so on. The real test, however, is in how they perform at state this week.
At this point, any Southwest regional race is an afterthought for most Colorado schools as the state meet looms large on the horizon.
Utah
The Beehive State, of course, contests its state meet in Salt Lake City midweek. There weren't too many regional meets that didn't make the publication cut from last week, but American Fork destroying everything in sight (whether it moved or not) at Region 4 was one that didn't make the cut. Westlake and Lone Peak, two very respectable teams, finished a distant second and third to American Fork. Things were a little closer, but not much, on the girls side as American Fork easily turned aside Lone Peak, Lehi, and Herriman.
Region 5 saw Ogden easily put away Sky View, and all others, for both regional crowns. I don't normally mention much individual stuff in these weekly reviews, but Sarah Feeny running 17:00 at this one--reportedly a 5K--is definitely worth a mention.
Maple Mountain's girls may have put themselves on the radar screen with a convincing show at Region 8. We'll look to see what story they tell at state tomorrow.
And, saving this one for dessert, Park City perfect-scored their Region 10 meet. To be sure, Park City was in a 3A region, but you need to understand that a 3A region in Utah is mostly schools of 4A size in other states in the Southwest region. In any case, Park City is not to be trifled with.