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Annie Kunz of Wheat Ridge may well replace Emily Blok as the classification's single most dominant athlete. Colorado Track XC file photo.
One way of estimating the relative strength of teams coming into the track season is to simulate a meet by taking the best performances of returning athletes from 2009 and placing them into a mock meet. We just did that for 4A girls and, based on those results, it looks like a strong possibility of a return to dominance for the Mullen girls.
Of course, virtual meets contested nearly three full months before state provide no guarantee of anything that happens in May, but they are a decent starting point for a conversation.
Nobody is ready to count Thompson Valley out, and Windsor's coach has moved on to 5A Fort Collins. And, in girls track, incoming freshmen typically play a strong role in the fortunes of many teams. So, much is unknown. One thing that is known, however, is that GinAsia Hamilton will not be running for Widefield HS this year as she has changed enrollment to Fountain-Fort Carson HS. While Widefield was probably an outside hope to contend for a team title, Hamilton's departure will even more directly impact the sprint events in 4A.
Regardless, here's what the team scores for 4A girls (assuming all individuals stayed with the same school, participate in track this spring, etc.) break down as:
Calculated as of February 28, 2010
These rankings were calculated by scoring the rankings as a meet. We took the individual rankings and scored them as a normal meet: 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. No relay events are calculated into team scores due to the difficulties inherent in identifying and "replacing" graduated relay legs. Athletes whose graduation years are unknown were left out of the list.
Athletes whose graduation years are unknown were left out of the list.