If you want to shout encouragement to Spencer Wenck on the course, it's best to do it quickly. Photo by Jeff McCoy.
Spencer Wenck and Cheyenne Mountain returned to the site of their first triumphs of the season and completed the circle.
And, while Mike Cernoia and a handful of teams threatened--at least at one time or another during the season--to make both races interesting, neither race was interesting from a competitive standpoint at the state meet.
Cheyenne Mountain's team total of 115 beat second-place Thompson Valley by 107 points. Wenck's winning time of 15:55 beat Cernoia by 27 seconds. And so it was that El Paso County exerted a little domination over the ranks of 4A boys cross country this fall.
For Wenck, the outcome never really was in doubt. The Palmer Ridge senior had opened a large margin on the field by 2K and never let anyone back into contention.
For Cheyenne Mountain, however, the eventual outcome was not so apparent, at least to the careless or untrained eye, in the early stages of the race. Cheyenne Mountain's boys came through in a fairly tight cluster at 2K, but well back of the lead group. One more spin around the circuit, however, changed a number of things. The pack wasn't so tight the second time around, but the placings had moved up considerably. In the final tally, Cheyenne Mountain went 10-17-23-25-40. Mitch Kasyon led the effort with a time of 16:47.
Had Kasyon slipped even one place, Cheyenne Mountain would have been shut out of the medals entirely, but none the less dominant, demonstrating that it doesn't take absolute top-tier talent to have an absolute top-tier team. For the Indians, however, next year figures to be a rebuilding year as each of the top five will depart by way of graduation.
Second-place Thompson Valley figures to fare better on that score, returning their top two next year and four of their top five.
Pueblo South, a highly ranked team throughout the season, was hampered in its state effort by a 51-point gap between the #1 and #2 positions. Chris Zirkle and Alfredo Lebron ran well, claiming third and fourth places, respectively, but the rest of the Moffat County lineup looked a little spent. Coronado, too, had the look of a team whose best days were just slightly behind them.