Varsity Girls: You Can't Keep A Deep Team Down
Coronado, Rampart, and Pine Creek each gave it a good fight. But, it's tough to match up against Mountain Vista. And that's true even when Mountain Vista is running their B team.
Rampart took the fight directly to Mountain Vista. From the earliest stages of the race, Kyla Ramsey and Lynzie Kutsner were staking, and defending, claims to the top positions in the field. Ramsey would end up running away with the meet title by over a minute. Kutsner ended up in a tangle of Golden Eagles and eventually emerged as the occupant of third place.
Not a bad start for the Rams, but they weren't able to close the deal.
Coronado offered some promise when Taylor Dutton and Grace Abernethy crossed in 5th and 6th, but the Cougars, too, were unable to close the deal.
Pine Creek was a bit handicapped by the absence of Lucy Hart. The Eagles got Kathryn Hibbard and Sarah Bassett into the top ten but were never quite the same threat to win a meet title that Rampart and Coronado were.
The problem here? Only that Mountain Vista is remarkably deep and the green singlets just keep coming. Girls who would be easily in varsity positions elsewhere take their opportunities on the Vista Nation B squad.
Freshman Shantell Hafner led the charge in 19:50 and second place. She was followed, in close order, by Makenna Kemp in 4th, Allie Chipman (yes, that Allie Chipman) in 12th, Abigail Wickoren in 13th, and Annemarie Nats in 24th. Further illustrating the depth problem that bedevils the lives of Jonathan Dalby and Eric Selle, Mountain Vista's Hannah Brown in the JV race posted a time that would have put her in the team's top five in the varsity race.
The Continental League is next up with the issue of dealing with Mountain Vista. They come to this meet with a singular goal in mind--win all six team titles. Right now, they appear to be on track to do exactly that.