Only a sophomore last spring, Burlington's Coley David won the 2A 400 meters. Photo by Alan Versaw.
Burlington won the 2A boys state title last spring. By my reckoning, they're worth watching again this spring.
Like a lot of other schools on the eastern plains, Burlington's enrollment has been in a steady decline since who-knows-when. Like a lot of other schools on the eastern plains, they still seem to be able to produce track and field talent way out of proportion to their numbers. Schools like Wray, Yuma, Haxtun, Julesburg (now Sedgwick County), Limon, La Junta, Akron, Holyoke, Merino, and, yes, Burlington have produced powerhouse track and field programs on a regular basis for years on end. I don't know what the explanation is, but I do know a phenomenon when I see one.
How well do I recall thinking my own high school track team was big stuff in 1977 only to head to Limon for the state meet and get our chops busted by a dozen or so eastern plains schools. Eastern plains track and field is a phenomenon.
Repeating as state champions in 2011 isn't going to be easy for the Cougars, but you'd be well advised not to dismiss them lightly.
The big three returnees for Burlington are junior Coley David, senior Trenton Rico, and senior Spencer Cure.
David is the defending state champion in the 400, but should also figure heavily in the 200 meter dash and triple jump outcomes at the state meet. That leaves room for David to pick up a relay. Expect that to happen.
Spencer Cure just may have inherited the mantle of 2A hurdle favorite if Walsh goes ahead and competes on their own as a 1A program this spring. Although Cure did not run the 110 hurdles at state last spring, he comes back this spring with the fourth-best 110 hurdles time in the 2A classification. Cure also finished second in last spring's 300 hurdles. Like Coley David, expect Cure to add at least one relay to his year's resume.
As an aside, somebody a few generations back with the surname of Cure is definitely responsible for an incredible assemblage of track and field talent coming out of Wray, Idalia, and Burlington High Schools (and perhaps a little beyond?). I'd love to know how many state track and field points attach to Great-great-grandpa Cure's legacy. I know this, it's no trivial number!
And then there would be Trenton Rico. Rico is about as good of a middle distance runner as you're going to see at a school without a cross country program, finishing fifth in both the 800 (2:00) and 1600 (4:47) at last year's state meet. And, since much of Burlington's success could hinge on how well Rico runs this spring, the absence of a cross country season raises some interesting questions. Will Rico be able to match the development of other 2A distance runners--guys like Trevor Walters of Paonia, Chris Zirkle of Hayden, Eric Lewis of Mancos, and Keith Heintzelman of Dayspring Christian--who had the advantage of being able to run cross country (in most cases, for a different school) this last fall?
If Rico can match their gains, Burlington's hand will be that much the stronger.
Outside of the big three returners, there are other athletes for Burlington to turn to. You knew there had to be. Nobody wins a football state title--in any classification--without a few decent athletes walking the hallways of their school.
While the content of Burlington's freshman class remains a bit of a mystery to me, it's not at all a far-fetched notion that senior Colin Eberhart finds himself in some pole vault points this spring. Ditto for sophomore Tobin Mettling in the long jump and 200 (assuming Mettling runs track this spring--his name is conspicuously absent from a lot of meet results from last spring).