When the teams left the meet on Friday night, nobody was quite sure who had won the meet. A few hours of Hy-Tek magic later uncovered the mystery. By the slimmest possible of margins, The Classical Academy won both team titles at the Sand Creek Scorpion Invitational on a breezy evening at the Sand Creek track. The girls edged the Liberty girls 118-117.5 while the TCA boys won a similarly close 103-102 contest over Mountain Vista.
But the close races didn't begin with the team contests.
Josh Lewis of Vista Ridge beat Liberty's Zach Schular in the 100 meters, 11.55 to 11.60 (-1.6). Sand Creek's Mariah Walker bested TCA's Hannah Carr by an inch and a quarter in the shot put.
But the two of the closest events of the evening both involved TCA's Josh Simkins and Falcon's Bryce Gregoire. The first of these two nail-biters came in the 1600. After a fairly comfortable pace established early by Mesa Ridge's Josiah Valenzuela, Gregoire took over at about 800 meters. Simkins continued the pursuit at a slightly faster pace on lap three. Both runners stepped on the gas hard for lap four. Only coming off the final turn was Simkins able to overtake the Falcon miler. The final lap split was roughly 61 seconds, for a winning time of 4:32.38.
Almost the same scenario repeated itself about 90 minutes later in the 800. This time, Simkins took the early lead and, for a while, it appeared as if he would run away with the thing. But, Gregoire drew deep to mount a serious challenge from about 500 to through 750 meters. He could not, however, summon a big enough surge to work his way around. About the time that Gregoire's charge began to lose steam, TCA's Adam Avischious put his head down and made a furious bid for the win, coming up just short--2:03.30 to 2:03.40.
With that, the close races of the evening were done, but there were a number of pleasantly solid performances. Javonte Walker-Reese of Sierra took home three individual titles with a 15.36 (-4.8) in the 110 hurdles, a 40.02 in the 300 hurdles, and a nice 6-7 clearance in the high jump. Mesa Ridge's Kadeshia Rose did one better by winning the 100 (12.39, -0.7), the 200 (26.40, +0.0), the 400 (59.36), and anchoring a winning 4x100 team. Colorado Springs Christian's Tiffany Kenney took home twin titles in the 100 hurdles and long jump in her first rankings meet of the season. Kendra Smith of Liberty also had twin titles, winning the long jump and 300 hurdles. Christian Norgard of Mountain Vista had the only other double of the meet, winning the boys' shot put and discus events.
Worth noting, however, is the fact that Liberty swept the girls distance events with Hannah Dimmick winning the 800 in 2:21.73, Gina Hauptman winning the 1600 in 5:17.16, and Hannah Everson winning the 3200 in 12:00.70. Those three also joined forces to win the 4x800 in a runaway of 9:56.58.