A clash of Titans and Angels
With a mile to go, East's Julia Schor still held seventh place, but the forms of Sophia Valentine and Rebecca Thompson were starting to come into focus behind her.
The 5A girls rankings this week were conspicuously missing the Denver East team. That shouldn't be lasting much longer.
In the early going of the race, the Angels were content to let The Classical Academy have the #1 and #2 positions once D'Evelyn's Eliana Thompson ditched her bid to stay with TCA's Sawyer Wilson in the lead, but Denver East was packing almost their entire team in the top 12 or so positions of the race even so. At the midway point of the race, the Angels were firmly in the lead and seemed to have things safely under control.
Lurking not far behind, however, were the Titans of TCA. And the second half of the race would belong to TCA.
Wilson and Kennedy McDonald held onto the first and second-place positions through the finish line. Wilson just broke 19 minutes to take the win. Third and fourth jostled back and forth a bit late in the race before Golden's Rachel Goodrich edged Denver East's Laura Romero at the finish.
Fifth would go to Eliana Thompson before Denver East crossed Lindsey Weyant in sixth.
The biggest change between the middle and the end of the race, however, came in the next two places as TCA crossed Sophia Valentine at 20:01, then Rebecca Thompson at 20:02. In a key exchange of places, both Valentine and Thompson had moved ahead of East's Julia Schor late in the race. Schor would finish in ninth.
Denver East would cross three more (13, 15, 18) before TCA finished their scoring with Kotryna Obergfell in 20th, but TCA had already done the necessary damage and the Titans' fifth was too close for Denver East to snare away the victory. The final tally had TCA at 38 and Denver East at 47. Golden was a distant third at 107.
D'Evelyn, without the contributions of the Haerbig twins, finished fourth at 110. Ralston Valley rested their top three and never figured as a contender in the team scoring. SkyView Academy was seventh overall and third in the 3A tally of teams.