For those who haven't noticed, one relatively effective way to goad me into writing a meet summary for a meet is to send me high-quality meet photos from said meet. I am easily made to feel guilty about leaving unused--but highly usable--photos on the table.
Ron Eberhard has been sending me photos all season long, it seems, and I've been finding that I enjoy the challenge of trying to frame a story around his (excellent) photos.
This week's bonus story attempts to capture some of the magic the Platte Valley Invitational.
You may have already noticed something about the times from this year's running of the Platte Valley Invitational. I did, too. On a day where results coming in were typically a little on the side of fast given the history of a meet, the times coming in from Platte Valley pitched their tent a little on the side of slow.
My first reaction to that was, "Did somebody build a hill in Kersey? A big, nasty, gnarly hill, maybe?" As it turns out, no. But, a reconfiguration of the course may have made things just a little longer than they have been in the past. What it likely means is a few hundred high schoolers got some bonus steps of cross country this weekend.
And, it's difficult to make a compelling case that there is such a thing as too much cross country.
Greeley Central's boys came into the meet riding a crest of momentum on the heels of their triumph at the Greeley City Championships just three days prior. Simon Kelati bumped that momentum up notch, taking his second individual title of the season, this time in 16:51*, eleven seconds ahead of Ryan Lehmuth.
Before all was said and done, though, Liberty Common had very nearly pushed the Greeley Central momentum over the edge of Kersey Cliff. But the Wildcats hung on with just enough to withstand the Eagle onslaught. The final team tally showed Central ahead, 56 - 65 (As an aside, it is a curious mathematical fact that the difference between two whole numbers that are transpositions of the digits of each other is always a multiple of nine).
Through four runners, Liberty Common was very much in the hunt, but when Central's Alvaro Espinoza crossed two places ahead of LC freshman Jadon Scarpella, the deed was done and the Greeley Central win preserved.
All the same, the LC lead trio of Nathan Dowdy, Will Seest, and Hudson Majeski bears further watching.
After missing last weekend, Resurrection Christian lead runner Christian Fagerlin was back on the course and finished in fourth.
Fagerlin's fourth, though, was not quite enough to match the effort of teammate Ellie Fantauzzo. After a second-place finish at the season opener at D'Evelyn, Fantauzzo's season had been moving forward in fits and starts. The win here helps to set things right again.
And, Fantauzzo beat Greeley City champion Kylie Kravig of University, 20:43 to 20:57, to pull it off. Third place was another 90 seconds back, so it very much did come down between Fantauzzo and Kravig.
It would be left to Eaton, however, to clean up on team honors. Eaton has been impressive all season long, and this meet helps solidify that reputation. McKenna Cyphers led the Red attack in 4th at 22:32, and the scoring was complete when freshman Rebecca Doughty crossed in 23:50. That left Eaton 26 comfortable points ahead of Resurrection.
The results advertised the middle school course at 3200 meters, but we may need to scale that designation down a hair. It is highly improbable that, at such a distance, we would find four middle school girls under 10 minutes and seven middle school boys under nine minutes. Even so, Kashlynn Tadolini of Brush might be a name worth keeping in your tickler file for future reference.