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Sierra's Kelby Dias (right) wins the 110 hurdle finals at the Kansas Relays. Photo by Tracy Rollins.
It's not that there weren't any high school track meets in Colorado this weekend. Teams converged in Durango and Rifle to contest meets under semi-tolerable (Rifle) and tolerable (Durango) conditions.
But the Front Range meets were a big 0-fer this past weekend. Of course, Friday's and Saturday's losses will be Monday's and Tuesday's gains. Looks like some unexpected out-of-class time for a lot of students and pretty nice weather for which to be out of class.
For the action that did take place this weekend, there were a handful of big results.
In Rifle, the Glenwood Springs girls 4 X 800 relay joined this year's sub-10 club. Tyler Thompson of Roaring Fork tripled his way 44-11.5 beyond the end of the board. In case nobody's noticed, the 3A boys triple jump is shaping up as a marquee event at the state meet. Elsewhere, Grand Junction Central's Jamie Pomaski spun the discus beyond 120 feet, and Meeker's girls posted the first 2A girls prequalifying time in a relay, 51.54 in the 4 X 400. Relay team member Kathryn Doll also had a nice long jump of 16-3.25 which should also put her on the prequalification board.
Meanwhile, Glenwood Springs continued to maintain its death grip on regional leadership, easily winning both the boys and girls divisions of the meet.
The Durango meet, newly christened the Ron Keller Invitational in honor of the retired longtime track coach at Durango High School, saw a good collection of schools from SW Colorado and the San Luis Valley converge for an afternoon in the sun.
Alamosa throwers Katie Kruger, Brian Ford, and Bobby Cody continue to have steller seasons. Kruger went beyond 43 and 130 on her day. Both Ford and Cody were in the 50s on the shot and Ford went beyond 170 in the discus. Kendra Marquez of Alamosa continues to reach new heights in the pole vault, topping out at 10-8 on the day.
Durango's Gus Barnes pleased the home crowd by winning both short sprints.
Ron Keller Invitational Results
Outside of the state, Kelby Dias (Sierra), Chase Cooper (Smoky Hill), Samantha Thompson (Sierra), and Jeff Warren (Mountain Vista), closed their eyes, clicked their heels together three times, and said, "There's no place like first." Each got their wish, ending up on the top of the podium at the Kansas Relays. Dias topped them all by taking home two firsts, and two personal season-best marks, in the 110 and 300 hurdles.
Earlier in the week, there was some pretty nifty high jumping going on as Jon Gamble of Pomona went 6-9.25 (if anyone cares to send me complete results of that meet, I'll be happy to post them) and Rocky Ford's Amber Lowther went 5-5 to set the standard for 2A girls at this point in the season. Emily Hanna of Fountain Valley set another 2A season standard with a 14.91 in the 100 hurdles. Beth Jones of Eaton advanced her 3A-leading triple jump mark to 36-6.5.
The weekend really isn't over, though, until the Monday and Tuesday make-ups are done. Look for particularly big doings on Monday at Littleton and Longmont High Schools. The Nike Littleton meet has been generating some buzz all month long and it's time to settle some things and get that meet in the books.
The Boulder County Championships will be hosted at Longmont's Everyly-Montgomery Field. Many county or city championship meets are, honestly, kind of low-key events where schools hold out, or sharply reduce the load for, many of their top athletes. The Boulder County meet, on the other hand, may be the premier such event in Colorado. For the uninitiated, I'm including a link to an article in the Longmont Times Call that gives something of the flavor of this meet:
33rd Annual BoCo Championships
Extra Credit: If you've read the article, can you name the nine schools in the original meet?
And, in case you've been doing a Rip Van Winkle this track season, there's a ton of talent in Boulder County this spring.