NXN-SW: All Five States Underway

Galena's Bryan Jordan opened up his season with a nice win at the Jim Vanden Heuvel Twilight Classic. Colorado Track XC file photo.

 

As Labor Day weekend draws the final hurrah out of summer, the cross country season is now officially open in all five states of the NXN southwest region.

Over in Nevada, there were two big meets--the Jim Vanden Heuvel Twilight Invitational in Sparks and the Palo Verde Labor Day Classic in Las Vegas.

The Palo Verde Classic is an oddly-configured meet with scoring divided by FR/SO and JR/SR and only three runners per team score. That makes it more than a little difficult to get a good read on the relative strength of the teams. From this meet, it looks as if Coronado holds the edge among younger male runners in the Las Vegas area schools and Centennial holds the edge among upperclassmen. We'll keep watching and see what develops.

Of greater regional interest was the 17:18 time for 4474 meters posted by Katie Gorczyca of Palo Verde High School in the girls FR/SO race. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen a girls time like that out of Nevada since the Lawrence sisters were dominating Nevada cross country. But that takes us back before the time of the NXN regional meets.

We'll all hope for more telling results out of the Las Vegas area to arrive in the weeks to come.

The other big meet in Nevada confirmed what a lot of us already suspected--Galena should be the boys team to beat and South Tahoe should be the girls team to beat. Galena beat Reno 39 - 53 in the boys division, but in a meet with only eight teams and nobody close to either Galena or Reno, that margin is bigger than it would appear. Bryan Jordan took the 4K race honors in 13:31.

South Tahoe took home the girls trophy with no individual placing higher than 10th. I infer that means they were tightly packed behind their lead runner--a good sign if the lead runner is keeping a strong pace.

Results for the Jim Vanden Heuvel race are--to this point, at least--hard to come by, so here's a link if you care to explore further: http://www.highschoolsports.net/local/Reno/article/Fridays-high-school-results/

At the other side of the Great Basin, the big meet of the weekend for Utah was held on the campus of Brigham Young University--the BYU Autumn Classic. Don't tell the meet directors, but September 4 doesn't quite qualify as autumn. The meet, however, does rank as a classic.

This year's version of the Classic saw Ogden take the first two individual places in the girls' race while the team went on to a decisive 30 - 51 win over Davis--last week's winner of the American Fork Grass Relays. Nobody else was close. Jamie Stokes was the individual winner in 19:10. It would seem that Ogden owns the driver's seat in Utah for the moment.

Davis didn't leave the meet too disappointed, however. Their boys won by a huge margin, taking 2-5-7-9-11 for their score. Their fifth runner finished the 5K course at 17:12. That meets my criteria of a good team.

https://ut.milesplit.com/meets/78960/results/128392

Earlier in the week, American Fork hosted and dominated their pre-region race, taking each of the first five places and burying schools like Lone Peak, Alta, and Hillcrest in the process. Clayton Young and Austin West went 1-2 at 15:36 and 15:37. The fifth runner for the Cavemen was at 16:39, just in case anyone was hoping to find a weakness at the back of the lineup.

There were absolutely, positively more meets in Utah last week, but digging out the results isn't always easy.

Down in Arizona, they start meets early this time of year. Business is slow at golf courses as the snowbirds are still equipping their recreational vehicles for the long trip to Apache Junction. So harriers migrate to the golf courses in the wee hours of the morning. By noon, everyone is safely back under the cover of air conditioning.

The marquee meet of Labor Day Weekend in Arizona was the Sole Sports Running Zone Cross Country Festival in Scottsdale. It's reported that the meet hosted some 1100 athletes. The meet is scored in two divisions with each division taking the total time of the four runners for each school. The hang of it all is that you lose several minutes of precious early daylight hours just reading off the meet name, the entered teams, and explaining the scoring!

They did, however, get it all done in time for Xavier College Prep to issue its first pounding of the season. In the "gold" race, featuring the top four runners from each school, Xavier put all four of their runners in the top 11, with Sarah Fakler winning the overall title in 17:55.

Brophy Prep edged Mesa Mountain View in the boys' division. Will Firth of Brophy Prep won the individual title in 15:58. I'm guessing that it was a 5K course.

For further detail and complete meet results, link here: https://az.milesplit.com/meets/75154

Wondering about Alhambra? They were up in Flagstaff running away with the boys' title at the Peaks Invitational. The divisions of this race are given semi-descriptive little names like open, ascent, and summit--roughly corresponding to the pigeon, bluebird, and eagle reading groups we were all assigned to in elementary school a generation or two ago (before educators figured out that those in the "pigeon" group were smart enough to figure out why the namesake of their group was not as revered as the namesakes of the other groups). Anyhow, check the "summit" category for results for the top runners. Take into account that Flagstaff sits at 7000 feet and has a lot of uneven terrain when you peruse the times.

https://az.milesplit.com/meets/75710

In New Mexico, all attention was focused on Albuquerque for the UNM Lobo Invitational. Next to the Rio Rancho Jamboree, this is likely the second-largest invitational all season in New Mexico. It never lacks for quality entries.

You all know the drill by now. When in New Mexico and talking about either what you smother your burrito with or about high school cross country, the question is always, "Red or green?" Now, you can answer that question with another question, "Boys or girls?" It's always fun to turn the question back on the questioner.

Anyhow, if you're talking about boys cross country, the answer is "red" this week. Albuquerque Academy took no prisoners en route to a 65-point margin over second-place Los Alamos (the guys in green). Jefferson Rieder took his turn leading the Red Army on Saturday, finishing in 15:49. Rio Rancho took third, one point behind Los Alamos, but took home the consolation prize of the individual title with Caleb Rubalcaba's nifty 15:39 circuit of UNM golf course.

But, if you were talking about girls cross country, the answer is "green." While Los Alamos didn't exactly bury the field, they did come in first, ten points ahead of La Cueva and at least 34 ahead of everyone else. Interestingly, the Hilltoppers had no finisher higher than 10th, but packed in nicely behind Victoria Honnell.

Julia Foster of Albuquerque Academy did run away with individual honors at 18:15, almost 30 seconds ahead of Kate Norskog in second.

https://nm.milesplit.com/meets/74700/results/128373

At this point, no other meet results I've seen from New Mexico this weekend appear to have serious NXN implications.

And that brings us to my home state of Colorado. There were three big meets in Colorado this weekend, but we're only going to talk about one of them. That one would be the Lori Fitzgerald Memorial Pre-State Cross Country Invitational. It's another one of those meets in need of a shorter name. The only thing longer than the name was the line of traffic out to E-470 leaving the meet, but I digress.

It would appear that girls cross country in Colorado hasn't missed a beat since two Colorado teams took third and ninth at NXN last fall. The names of the top teams may have just changed, however.

While Fort Collins and The Classical Academy are still fielding fine teams, it is Monarch and Boulder that rank at the top of the class following the first test. On a challenging native grass course with three big climbs, Monarch brought each of its top five in under 20:45. Boulder got its top five all in under 21:05. The two teams had only one top ten finisher between them. These are two deep, strong, and well-balanced teams.

Eleanor Fulton (Highlands Ranch) cruised to an 18:46 winning time in the near 90-degree heat and dust.

It was not a meet for the faint of heart.

For those counting on a continued run of not-quite-NXN-quality boys teams from Colorado, it appears your luck may be running thin. Monarch's girls weren't the only ones to post a big win on opening weekend. The Monarch boys laid waste to the field with a count of 101 points to 168 for second. And it was all that convincing. Monarch has some shoring up to do at position #5, but this has the look of the best boys team in Colorado in quite some time if the crew stays healthy and focused.

Columbine's Will Kincaid won the 5A boys' race in 16:11. Spencer Wenck of Palmer Ridge took the 4A boys race in 16:09 for the top time of the day.

https://co.milesplit.com/meets/65358

And all of that should whet your appetite for next week. Here are some of the races coming up in the next week that should have your attention:

Colorado - Cherry Creek Invitational (Friday), St. Vrain Invitational (Saturday). Almost every top team in the state will be at one or the other.

New Mexico - Jemez Valley, Sandia, and Highland are each hosting meets this coming weekend. Like a lot of you, I'll learn which meets draw the best competition when I scan the results next weekend.

Arizona - The northern Arizona schools will likely be heading en masse to the Canyon de Chelly Invitational. This meet will pick up a few reservation schools from New Mexico as well. The bigger meets around the large metropolitan areas should be the Chandler, Padre, and Catalina Invites. Please fill me in if I've missed something. Update (9/6): I'm told the Ray Wherley Invitational in Prescott is a big deal. I'll be sure to include a summary of the results from that meet next weekend.

 

Utah - The Murray Invite and Wasatch Invite are on tap for Friday and Saturday.

Nevada - Each week of the Nevada season is like Christmas to me. I never know what I'm going to find. There would be the Las Vegas Cross Country Invitational on the calendar for the southern schools. I have no clue about the northern schools at this point. I did learn last year, however, that the stronger programs around Reno/Sparks and Carson City spend a lot of weekends hopping over the Sierra to meets in California. While running in big meets in California doesn't tend to produce many trophies, it is probably preferable to running against the same seven schools every weekend of the season.