Although his lead would wither a little in the final stages of the race, Adugna Moritz had nobody close to his back on the southern loop of the course. Photos by Alan Versaw.
It's difficult to handicap middle school state in advance. The sheer multiplicity of race lengths contested around the state, with not a few odd distances thrown in for good measure, makes it very difficult to come to the state meet with a clear idea of who will run away with it all.
For the middle school girls, you might have made a great case for any of Ruby Brown, Kenadi Krueger, Alayna Szuch, and Aidyn Woodall.
With Brown, you had someone who, after taking third at St. Vrain on September 12, had dominated races all over southern Colorado. In Krueger, you the winner of the Loveland Sweetheart and St. Vrain races, plus last year's fifth-place finisher at state. In Szuch you had someone who has been busy coming home with top-10 finishes at the Rocky Mountain Shootout and the USA Mountain Running Championships. And, with Woodall, you have last year's USATF XC national champion among the 11-12 girls at 3000 meters.
But, aside from Brown and Krueger, there wasn't much head-to-head competition during the season of the kind that might select of favorite, whether slim or prohibitive.
So, it was left to be decided on the course.
And, it became evident very early that Woodall's mindset was one of forcing the pace from the start. Woodall (photo, left) jumped to an early lead and simply refused to let anyone close on her. Szuch stayed closest throughout but, no matter how fast she turned over, the visage of Woodall up front only grew dimmer and more distant.
When 3500 meters were complete, Woodall's margin had reached 26 seconds, 12:14 to 12:40. Krueger was four seconds back of Szuch in third. It was every bit as decisive as 26 seconds sounds like it might be.
One of the trends of the middle school state championships over its now five-year history has been increasing involvement of schools from larger school districts. This year, the dam burst. Team title winner Holmes Middle School (61) comes out of Colorado Springs District 11. Second-place Westview (106) calls the St. Vrain Valley District home. Third-place Preston (123) belongs to the Poudre Valley School District. Fourth-place Mountain Ridge (126)? Well, they feed into Mountain Vista, and that's the Douglas County School District.
If you care to know, Holmes feeds into Coronado High School. Seventh-grader Kindyll Wetta paced the Holmes attack with a 13th-place finish.
The presence of schools from larger districts, with arguably greater hurdles to clear to get approval to attend a meet like this, has been on the rise for years, but it has now reached the point where these schools dominate.
And, as the middle school state championship races begin to exceed the carrying capacity of the trails the run on, perhaps one of the possibilities that could come under consideration is dividing the championship races by size of school.
No inside information has been released stating that's the direction things are heading, but that does loom as one of the possibilities that could fall under consideration.
If the girls individual title was a rout, the boys individual title only looked that way for a thousand or so meters.
On the southern end of the course, and late in the race Lucille Erwin's Adugna Moritz had fashioned a substantial lead for himself and appeared to have the race in hand. But, appearances can be deceiving.
Undeceived by Moritz's lead was Easton Allred of Ranch View Middle School. And, if you're putting things together here, you might guess that the ranch viewed from his school is Highlands Ranch.
In any case, the outcome of the boys championship was very much in doubt over the final 200 meters. At one moment, it would appear Allred had Moritz in the bag, but the next moment would see Moritz fighting off the charge. Down to the proverbial wire it went, with Moritz taking the win, 11:19 to 11:20.
Third place went to Faith Christian's Cole Sprout, who dabbled with taking the lead from Moritz at 1000 or so meters, but Moritz was having none of that.
Fourth place went to an individual who might be the face of the future of Colorado middle school cross country. Sixth-grader (and easily top among his grade level peers) Erik LeRoux out of Colorado Springs ran 11:38 for his spot on the awards stand.
To anyone who watched the race, the two team title contenders were plain for all to see. Preston's uniforms are tough enough to miss as things stand, but when they're all gathered at the front of the field, the air gets let out of the mystery balloon in a hurry. And, if you've been around middle school state for any number of years at all, you know the Summit Ridge uniforms like the back of your hand, so accustomed are you to seeing them.
There was a good deal of back-and-forth in the team scoring, but the final edge went to Preston, 79 to 87. Leading the charge for Preston were James Gregory in ninth and Cody Larsen in 12th. And, if I'm not mistaken both of those names hook a chain to some Colorado high school cross country history.