Kirstin Franklin of Greeley West leaps to 6th in the triple jump at Saturday's Fort Morgan Invitational. Photo by Sue Carter.
Although I'm still waiting to hear news from one or two meets, it looks as if the weather got the best of some meets on the opening weekend.
At this point, it appears that only the Fort Morgan and Boulder Invitationals contributed to the 4A and 5A rankings this weekend. You may check unofficial rankings at this site by clicking on Rankings, then selecting gender, event, and filtering by classification. The only results I will be posting to rankings will be wind-legal results from prequalifying/rankings meets.
And that little piece of news affects the results that were posted to rankings from the Fort Morgan Invitational. Although I do not know the specifics that apply to the situation, the 100s and 100/110 Hurdles from that meet had no wind index, meaning they are not legal for rankings. One heat of the girls 100 did have a wind reading, however, and those results do post to the rankings, but none of the marks from that heat will remain on the rankings board for long.
With those housekeeping matters out of the way, let's take a look at some of the notable performances from out at Fort Morgan on Saturday:
Liz Tremblay lit up the track with a 57.79 400 and a 2:26.69 800, winning both events. The 57.79 will probably take her to the state meet in May if she needs it to, but look for even better races to come from the Thompson Valley senior.
The entire Windsor team--completely overlooked in my preseason articles--made me look rather foolish in their debut performance for 2009. The Wizards won both the boys and girls divisions of the meet, posting 99.5 and 162 points, respectively. Emily Elliott won both the 100 and 200, the girls 4 X 400 posted an eye-popping (for early March) 4:07, and Ashley Utley led a 1-2-3 finish for Windsor in the discus. On the boy's side, Zane Hyland won the 400, Bob Barbour the 110 Hurdles, and Windsor's 4 X 400 went 3:35.17 for the win.
Elsewhere, Valley's Lindsay Hubbard dominated the 300 Hurdles, Laura Tremblay breezed to a win in the 3200 running big negative splits, Kole Kadavy of Greeley Central was way out ahead of the field in the boys 300 Hurdles, and the Greeley West distance trio of Kody Leach, Ashlee Smalley, and Erica Hinchcliffe looked very nearly in mid-season form for the one race they each ran.
Over in Boulder, Rachel Hinker of Lyons picked up where she left off last year. This time she easily won the 100 and 200. Just guessing, but Hinker probably had a part in two very nice sprint relays for Lyons as well. The 4 X 100 was a prequal. A just-too-strong wind, however, cost Hinker a prequal in the 200. Hinker's teammate Andrew Roberts wasted no time in prequalifying the 1600 in 4:32.38. Cory Engel of Northglenn laid down the first sub-50 quarter of the season, winning the 400 in 49.87. His 300 Hurdle time of 40.60 wasn't too bad, either.
Reaching some pretty impressive heights were Jon Gamble of Pomona in the high jump (6-6) and Miranda Link of Roosevelt in the pole vault (10-1). Link, obviously, exercised a little of the winner's latitude in setting the bar at a non-standard height. The closest thing to an early-season popped hamstring came from Fairview's Kenny Bell who soared 21-7 in the long jump.
The where-did-that-come-from award for this weekend goes to Greeley West's Jordan Davis who spun the discus 166-1. I'm thinking that one stands for state qualification, too, if needed. Congratulations, Mr. Davis!
Fort Morgan Invitational
Boulder Invitational I