So, who will it be: Evan Appel or Bobby Nicolls? Or, do you have a dark horse candidate? Matt Bell, Walter Schafer, and Collin Munoz each would be serious contenders most any other year but, honestly, it will take an upset of major proportions to bump either Appel or Nicolls. Of course, that very possibility is precisely why you run the race instead of just analyzing results.
Team-wise, this one has to be anyone's guess: Cherry Creek, Loveland, Dakota Ridge, Fairview, Durango, or Regis Jesuit? If you're inclined toward dark horses in the team race, maybe one of the Colorado Springs programs--Rampart or Palmer, perhaps.
Loveland has been running under cover all season. They have rarely put their top seven on the same starting line and could be dangerous when they do. While Loveland has carefully rotated their lineup, all the big guns have seen some big meet competition this year.
Anyone familiar with last year's girls 5A race knows that you never figure you've seen Dakota Ridge's hand until everything is on the line. The Eagles easily won the Jeffco 5A title last week, but state will present a whole new order of competition.
Cherry Creek has consistently put a strong lineup, and more or less the same lineup, on the starting line throughout the season. It doesn't appear there are a lot of unknowns for the Bruins. Do they have enough to hold off all the other contenders? Creek has now run Poudre SD Pre-State, their own invitational, Liberty Bell, John Martin, Stanford, and Centennial League in fairly close succession. It's been a brutal schedule. Will the strategy pay off or collapse?
Fairview was caught (barely) by Loveland at the Front Range Conference meet, but the Knights have a history of showing up at the state meet with a better team than they were given credit for going in. While never stealing the spotlight, this team has been performing well and showing progress all season. Their scheduling has been significantly more modest than Cherry Creek's.
Durango has twice come over to the Front Range and outmuscled some solid competition. The Demons must travel again to Colorado Springs for their regional meet and then to Fort Collins for state. Will the demands of travel exact a price? Can they keep their front five close enough together to win it all? Durango ran a low-key meet at the Montrose Relays this past weekend and appears to be healthy heading into regionals.
Regis Jesuit's 3-4-5 seem to be getting better as the season progresses. Second-place Chaparral beat them at 4 and 5 in the Continental League meet, however, so there are still questions to be answered. Regis almost certainly has the top 1-2-3 in the 5A ranks.
With a state scoring system that keeps individual runners in the scoring (Colorado stands as an exception to conventional cross country scoring on this count), runners like Matt Bell, Collin Munoz, Roblet Muhudin, and Chris Holt emerge non-trivial factors in determing the overall champion. These four, and a few others who figure to run at state as individuals or members of teams that are unlikely to contend for the team title, figure to displace a few runners from the top contender schools. Thus, the presence of these individuals lends a slight advantage to the teams that can put runners in ahead of this group--and the more they can put ahead the better. A slight edge may be enough to determine a champion this year.
So far as regional matchups go, it's going to be tough getting out of 5A Region 2. Tough enough, in fact, that the big contenders cannot afford to take things too softly here. An unfortunate convergence of powerhouse programs--Dakota Ridge, Cherry Creek, and Regis Jesuit, with Cherokee Trail right behind--headlines the roster of teams competing in this region. Heritage and Denver South appear to be the bubble teams in this region with potential to cause problems for the other schools if they run a little above their records to date.