There was a certain amount of unfinished business left over from Battle Mountain's 2015 cross country season.
Against all kinds of odds, Battle Mountain made a contest of the state meet that Air Academy figured to dominate with ease. Coming close was a great showing for Battle Mountain, but it wasn't what they came to Colorado Springs for last October.
So, it only figures that Battle Mountain had designs on the 2016 4A Girls title.
Only nothing seemed to go their way early early in the 2016 season.
Late in the summer, key contributor Naomi Harding got crosswise with her bicycle and busted a flipper. A few days later, Battle Mountain watched, a bit helplessly, as a nicely reloaded Air Academy team, featuring incoming freshman phenom Tatum Miller, delivered a schooling at the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede. Air Academy took the win and the accolades, 59 - 122.
Adding insult to injury, both Valor Christian and Thompson Valley were breathing down Battle Mountain's back before the meet was done.
The momentum built up from last year's state meet effort had entirely left Battle Mountain's camp, packed its bags, and headed south.
Such are the beginnings of miracles.
It was a long early season of split squads and mixed results for the Huskies. The first real hint that things were piecing back together again was a dominating win at Anna Banana. But, that win didn't come against Front Range competition. Doubts lingered (at least outside the Husky camp), and justifiably so.
The next Saturday, Naomi Harding returned to the roster for the Metro State/Mountain Vista shindig.
Although Battle Mountain managed a third, behind 5A powerhouses Broomfield and Mountain Vista, it was a distant third, not the kind of third that gives birth to delusions of grandeur. And, though Naomi Harding finished in the scoring order for the Huskies, it was only as the fifth runner. There was a little rust in the drive train.
Battle Mountain came over the Continental Divide once again for the Pat Amato Classic the next weekend, but with a mostly B squad of runners. Naomi Harding was, however, back in the show and her race time of 19:28 stood out as reason to be encouraged over the previous week's showing. One day later, Harding's usual varsity teammates ran the meat grinder at Chris Severy, posting times that gave virtually zero indication of what their overall health and fitness might be.
The Huskies spent the rest of their October leading up to State from the relative safety and obscurity of the Western Slope, perhaps plotting the script of their eventual and final return to the Front Range.
All this while, the Air Academy ship had been hitting some increasingly turbulent waters. While Maria Mettler's season only got better, the wear of the season began to show on other members of the deeply talented Kadet team. And, subsequent to a big win at the Doherty Spartan Invitational on October 7, that wear and tear began to show even on Tatum Miller, the freshman phenom.
Nevertheless, Air Academy still managed to squeek by an rapidly-improving Pine Creek team at the regional qualifier and seemed together enough there to mount a credible enough defense of their state title from 2015 at State nine days later.
Once State arrived, however, the diverging courses and directions of the Battle Mountain and Air Academy seasons were almost immediately apparent as the 4A Girls race wound its way through the indoor arena and across the bridge over the creek.
Nobody paying the slightest measure of attention could have missed it. The brilliant black-and-yellow singlets of Battle Mountain surged to the fore early and hard. Aside from Maria Mettler, the Kadets could not keep anyone in close contact with the pack of three Huskies (Naomi Harding, Elizabeth Constien, and Lizzie Harding) running front-and-center in the chase pack.
Air Academy caught a major break when Lizzie Harding succumbed to a lingering illness and dropped out of the race with about a quarter-mile to go, but the effect was too little and too late the rescue the Kadet cause.
The 2-3-13 scoring of the Huskies' remaining top three was way too much for the worn down Kadets to overcome. Alex Raichart had moved up nicely, helping to counterbalance the impact of the dropped runner ahead of her. And, so, Battle Mountain's total of 98 easily outdistanced the 130 posted by Air Academy. The win, even as convincing as it was, would have been all the more convincing had Naomi Harding been able to finish.
Naomi Harding's teammates made sure she got a view of the first-place trophy, even while being attended to by the medical personnel at the scene.
Battle Mountain had finished the business they couldn't quite complete in 2015. A new order had been established in 4A Girls.