Alexei Cox enjoyed a big state meet for Broomfield, including winning the 100. Photo by Jeff McCoy.
Seasoned track and field coaches refer to this kind as a "battle of attrition."
Before the meet came to a conclusion for Niwot with a resounding win in the 4x400, the Cougars left a lot of points on the track. Fortunately for Niwot, the main teams involved in trying to chase down the defending champions experienced a few problems of their own in maintaining their seeds.
The 4A girls state track meet was unkind to a whole lot of folks.
The unkindness seemed to start on Thursday when Nicole Montgomery, fresh off a blistering SMR8 anchor leg that saved her team a spot in finals, ran an rubbery legs and missed making the finals of the 100 meter dash. The entire rest of the weekend seemed to work out like that for a surprising number of folks.
Of Niwot's 66 team points, 56 came courtesy of Elise Cranny and relays. Niwot has been a solid relay team all year long and those relays very much carried the Cougars to their second consecutive team title. The remaining ten points came four from Christa Boettiger in the 3200 and six from Kela Fetters in the 100 and 300 hurdles. Niwot didn't quite have things locked up before the 4x400, but the relay squad made quick work of finishing the job.
Thompson Valley, Broomfield, and Palmer Ridge managed to keep it close enough to be interesting to the end, but each of these squads had opportunities for addtional points that slipped from their hands as well. For now, though, we'll focus more on what went right.
Lindsey Kroboth was the big individual producer for Thompson Valley. Kroboth scored 4.5 in a rare dead heat for fifth in the 100, added six in the 300 hurdles, and added 10 more with a high jump title. As we've come to expect from the Eagles, 26 points came from relays, but the 4x200 missing finals was a telling blow for Thompson Valley.
Broomfield welcomed 17 points from Alexei Cox with a win in the 100 and a third in the 200. The second-place 4x100 and first-place 4x200 Broomfield relays also benefitted from the touch of Cox. Amanda Campbell added 15 more points in the hurdle events. But, the big points ran out there. From there, Broomfield nickled and dimed their way to 55 team points.
Palmer Ridge's biggest contributions came from Ali Deitsch, who nearly nipped Elise Cranny at the finish line of the 800, took third in the 1600, and anchored a third-place 4x400 relay. Libby Acker, Lauren Cherry, and Carley Wilcox added a bundle of points in the horizontal jumps and pole vault, and two sprint relays found their way to mid-range kind of points. That left the Bears in fourth with 52.5.
Fireworks were supplied by Elise Cranny who broke two all-classification records with a 10:17.48 in the 3200 and a 4:47.54 in the 1600, Harrison's state meet record of 1:45.38 in the SMR8, and Nicole Montgomery, who cleaned house on the 4A 400 meter state meet record with a stunningly quick 53.44. Montgomery's 24.02 in the 200 suggested she may have made a strong bid for a clean sweep in the sprints had her 100 meter prelim come with more opportune time schedule.
Nobody else was able to double up event titles, though Mariah Walker came agonizingly close to a state meet record in the shot put.