Denver East rates as the favorite to win the DPL crown, and if that is to happen it will take solid efforts from guys like Conner Campbell. Photo by Alan Versaw.
Through the remainder of this week, I'll be previewing as many of the league meets as I can possibly get to. We'll have a quick discussion of some of the highlights and possibilities, followed by links to virtual meets for both the boys and girls divisions of the league meet. The virtual meets have the feature that you can eliminate runners you don't think will be running (simply hover with your mouse over the athlete name, then click on the 'X' that appears at the left-hand end of the line). Note, however, that virtual meet links require MileSplit Insider status for viewing.
We begin here with the Denver Prep League meet.
There was a day when the schools of the Denver Prep League were of more or less uniform size. That day is no longer. These days, Montbello and Denver East are very large schools (though Montbello's cross country program is small by way of comparison to school size), while Denver West now has only a 3A enrollment. The other schools scatter somewhere in between, with newly opened Northfield supporting a team of freshmen.
If you're trying to identify a favorite in the boys division, that nod probably goes to Denver East, but Denver South and Denver North both have the potential to have some say in how that goes. North has the strongest set of front runners, and East has the best depth. It should be an interesting battle.
On the girls side, North once again has the top set of front runners, but depth tilts in the direction of East and South. Denver East likely rates as a slightly stronger favorite here than with the boys.
Individual titles seem very likely to go to Kayla Young and Harrison Scudamore, assuming that they run (which isn't always a given for league meets).
Young's pursuit is likely to come at some distance, but both teammate Samantha Skeen and East's Isa Marshall have run below 20 minutes this season. Scudamore's toughest competition figures to come from Riverz Flores (North) and Yohanes Alem (South). Both Scudamore and Young are undefeated against Denver Prep competition this fall.