Elise Cranny works a very wide smile into her domination of the 4A girls race. Photo by Alan Versaw.
There may have been a moment when the outcome of the 4A girls individual race was in doubt. If there was, however, I missed it. Even Katie Rainsberger, one not given to throwing in the towel easily, seemed content to let Cranny do her own thing at the front of the pack--or, rather, way out in front of the pack. Rainsberger, who took Cranny to the wire last fall, would finish 40 seconds back this year.
Ultimately, Cranny broke the course record set last year by Heather Bates, though questions arising about the times coming out of the meet figure to put that new record under closer scrutiny before all is said and done.
Cranny closes out her CHSAA cross country career with back-to-back state titles. If you search back through the annals of 4A cross country results, you will find that to be a lot more elusive of an accomplishment than you would think it would be. But Cranny has specialized of late in nailing down the elusive.
There simply wasn't anything spellbinding about the individual race. But the team contest more than made up for any lack left by the individual portion of the race.
By common assent, 4A girls was probably the most wide open of all the team races to be contested at the 2013 Colorado State Cross Country meet. Any of about 10 teams seemed to have a legitimate hope.
Curiously, the team that would eventually win it had none of the state medalists. In fact, Thompson Valley did not have anyone cross until Kendra Larson tripped the sensor in 23rd. It was what happened after Larson, however, the cued the magic.
Immediately after Larson came teammate Hayley Berg. Helena Ernst ended her race in 30th, followed by Megan Irvine in 34th. Kacie Kaufman closed things in 38th. The tightly-knit 22-23-27-30-33 team scoring put TV into first by ten points over Niwot, earning the Eagles their second team title in three years. State championships are an on-and-off kind of thing for Thompson Valley, but this one marks an on year in the cycle. Niwot threatened to win it all with Christa Boettiger joining Cranny in the top 12, but a large 3-4 gap foiled the Cougars' title hopes.
Thompson Valley's margin of victory would have been greater except that freshman Emily Leidig collapsed just before the finish line and remained on the dirt for several seconds before regaining her feet and walking across the finish line.
Rival school Mountain View extended the Northern Conference domination with a fourth. Only Battle Mountain managed to break up the conference stranglehold on the top slots. A mere 25 points separated the top four teams.
Coming in fifth was The Classical Academy, thus ending a string of ten consecutive state title for the Titans, a team in only their second year of 4A competition. TCA managed to reverse a loss to Air Academy from regionals, but came up short of matching the firepower of the top Northern Conference programs.
Times for this year's race were generally slower than last year's 4A girls race, Cranny's winning time notwithstanding. The difference, coming despite a very nice oxygen density measurement, may owe to a very fast start for almost the entire field. With the creek crossing looming at about 300 meters and a near-universal fear of getting slowed to a crawl if they reached to creek crossing too deep in the pack, a furious charge was made for the creek crossing, a dash which several athletes appear to have paid for in a serious way later in the race.