Landry Cogburn is the top-ranked 2A 300 hurdler coming into the season, but also adds some strength to the Baca County 4 X 400. 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 did that for 2A boys and, based on those results, it looks like a highly-competitive race among about seven or eight teams, including last year's champion Wray, for the state title. One thing that always seems to be in evidence in the 2A ranks is that one or two top-tier athletes can instantly change a team from one that scores a few points at the state meet to one that can legitimately contend for the title. Nowhere is that more evident than with Kyle Carper of Holyoke. Holyoke is by no means of school devoid of track and field tradition, but Carper gives the Dragons real reason to believe they can win it all. But Carper probably can't win it on his own...
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. Here's what the team scores for 2A boys (assuming all individuals stayed with the same school, participate in track this spring, etc.) break down as:
Calculated as of March 04, 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.
Landry Cogburn is the top-ranked 2A 300 hurdler coming into the season, but also adds some strength to the Baca County 4 X 400. Colorado Track XC file photo.