It's not as easy of a question to answer as it would seem, but Lake City just might be the smallest school in Colorado to boast a track and field program. And, on a per-student basis, nobody gets track and field production out of their student body like Lake City does.
All weekend long, Gabe Murphy, Riley Moore, Chris Athey, and Izaac Borchers did battle with Heritage Christian Academy. Those aren't the only guys on the Fourteeners' track and field program, but they certainly are the visible face of the program.
The odds were long against Lake City program, but the Fourteeners seemed neither to know nor to care much.
Riley Moore tackles the sprints. Moore earned a seventh in the 100, a third in the 200, and a fourth in the 400.
Chris Athey is the field event specialist. Athey earned a fourth in the high jump and a sixth in the triple jump.
Izaac Borchers and Gabe Murphy double-team the distance events. Borchers and Murphy went 3-7 in the 800, 1-4 in the 1600, and 3-5 in the 3200. Helping with the arithmetic, that's a sum total of 38 points from the tandem in three events.
In case you hadn't yet done the other arithmetic, that leaves one event for Moore, Murphy, and Borchers, and two for Athey. Be sure that they use the full four events at Lake City.
And, the relay of choice at Lake City is the 4x800. This year, as they did last, Lake City took the 4x800 crown. And, their six seconds of margin was rather convincing.
Athey would come back to anchor the 4x400 at the end of the meet that added one point to the Fourteener total. Lake City left the state meet with 76 points and a second-place trophy.
The bodies simply were not there to overtake Heritage Christian Academy's 105 points.
Like Lake City, Heritage Christian Academy leans hard on distance (as a sidebar, it could be suggested with some merit here that having a cross country program is one important key to small-school track and field success). In fact, sometimes it was difficult to find any other color than the navy blue of Lake City or the green of Heritage Christian in 1A Boys distance events this weekend.
Lake City posted 38 points in individual distance events. Heritage Christian Academy posted 46, mostly in the 1600 and 3200.
Isaiah Bowsher was the lone Eagle in the 800, scoring two points in eighth. Seth Bruxvoort, Bowsher, and Keaton Case made the case for green in the 1600, going 2-3-5. The first five places in the 1600 all went either in the direction of Lake City or Heritage Christian. And, Bruxvoort, Bowsher, and Case opened the meet for HCA going 1-2-4 in the 3200. Once again, two schools owned each of the top five places.
While Heritage Christian couldn't match Lake City's win in the 4x800, they did finish a very respectable third.
Jojo Bork, Conner Salem, and Josh Damir gave Heritage Christian a solid presence in the sprints and hurdles. Together, they accounted for 33 points across five individual events. Bork and Damir were part of a 1A record 1:33.08 in the 4x200.
In a bit of a turn of fortune, Heritage Christian Academy was shut out in the field events this year, but it didn't matter. The track events produced more than enough to tide the Eagles over.