Week in Review: Meets Springing Up All Over the Place

Boulder County Championships

The one is the best city/county/district meet in the state. Nobody else brings out all the artillery for a meet like this than the Boulder County schools do.

Boulder County isn't especially strong in every event this year, but there was no shortage of stellar performances (even if wind did mess with a few marks counting for rankings).

Rachel Hinker of Lyons and Trent Ireland of Broomfield both accounted for three individual titles each. Hinker won the 100, 200, and long jump, while Ireland won the 100, 200, and 400. And, honestly, only Boulder's Rex Quartarone made any of those races close as he challenged Ireland all the way to the finish of the 400 meters.

Niwot walked away with the girls' team title while Longmont did the same with the boys. Niwot's triumph was fueled by only one individual event title, that by Kelsey Traxinger in the 400. Niwot is avery nicely balanced team but the shortage of dominant individual talent gives them a bit of a handicap to overcome at the state meet. Maybe the Cougars will take a page out of wrestling's current agenda and lobby for a dual meet state championship.

Longmont enjoyed a bit more success in the category of individual titles. The Trojans swept the sprint relays, had a title from Josh Cogdill in the 100 hurdles, and another from Braden Hitchcock in the 300 hurdles. Cogdill and Hitchcock also claimed the high jump and long jump titles, respectively. Justin Reedy-Hansen finished out the individual titles for Longmont with the discus title.

Monarch's boys dominated the distance events with Kirk Webb taking the 800 and 1600, Jackson Friesth winning the 3200, and both contributed to the Coyotes' 4x800 title.

Valerie Allman continues to impress in the discus, going to 139-2 in this meet. Her shot put is getting better week by week, as well.

Coal Ridge Invitational

Coal Ridge, for those who never travel farther west on I-70 than Vail or Glenwood Springs, is located near Silt--about midway between Glenwood Springs and Rifle. It's the reason Rifle is teetering back and forth between 3A and 4A these days. Anyhow, they hosted a meet on Friday evening.

Rebecca Deal of Cedaredge, a freshman who had previously posted a nice triple jump mark, had a dominating win in the long jump and added a bit of strength to the Bruin relays. This team is looking better every week.

Paonia's Adrian Penny, who had a bit of a disappointing season last year, seems to have forgotten all that. His 100 win was impressive.

Rifle's boys sprint relays are going to be a lot for other 3A  folks to handle.

District 20 Championships

Tuesday is kind of a tough day to have a rankings meet, especially when a lot of schools use Monday/Wednesday quality day cycles. Still, lots of meets show up on Tuesdays and, this year, this would be one of them.

David Krumland would use this meet to hone his pole vault skills. It paid off to the tune of 14-4. It would pay off again even bigger on the weekend.

Heather Bates blistered an 11:25 3200 with nobody in sight until she started lapping just about everybody in the field.

Don Osse Lakewood Tiger Invitational

Jeffco Stadium on a Thursday. I'm not at all sure how many rankings meets this venue has hosted already this year, but it's a bunch--with a bunch more on the horizon.

Clearly, the Brogan sisters of Lakewood need more competition, folks. Mckenzie won the 200 and 400. Haley won the 100 hurdles and 300 hurdles. Apparently, they avoid each other on the track. More wealth to go around that way, or something like that.

Glenwood Springs Demon Invitational

While the Glenwood Springs track sits in a gorgeous setting, the west stands do not. You can't see anything on the back straight during races because the stands are inside the track. I'm guessing that makes for some interesting out-of-bounds action during football season. Note to all football players--be hitting the brakes when you go out of bounds on the west side of the field at Glenwood Springs.

But, back to matters more trackish...

Glenwood Springs absolutely obliterated the competition on the girls side, but struggled some with the boys. There simply are no boys' teams on the western slope that are able to dominate a meet like the Glenwood girls did on Saturday. Rifle might have come close, however, if they'd been letting out all the stops. Most of those stops had already been let out the night before at Coal Ridge, however.

Horizon Pre-Prom Invite

Longhorn Invitational

Springfield has the distinction of having the last synthetic surface track before you hit Oklahoma. It's also in the running for being the smallest town in Colorado with a track with a polyurethane surface, in case that little bit of trivia is something you wanted to know. The main memory I have of running a team there, however, is one of leaving a wind-demolished tent in the dumpster.

Apparently, though, the wind took a breather this weekend--no marks lost to the wind.

Springfield's boys sprint relays have been doing nicely all season, but they put on an extra little show for the hometown folks, winning all three sprint relays. For good measure, they won the 4x800 as well. Boise City went five-for-five in the girls relays which would be noteworthy except that Boise City is from Oklahoma, not Colorado. The mark of the day was Landry Cogburn's wind-legal 14.88 in the 110 hurdles prelims.

If you're a fan of 1A track and field, you may want to scan these results closely. There's a lot to learn about the upcoming 1A state meet from the results of this meet.

Max Marr Spartan Classic

Give Berthoud some credit. Not many schools would take on a rankings meet in Lakewood on Thursday and host their own invitational on Saturday. Just another reason that Berthoud isn't like many other teams. Courtney Mills continues her remarkable season, but somebody please stop her before she exceeds eleven meets. I'd like to see her run and jump at state.

Not many people have had answers to the power of the Berthoud girls all season long. And, while Holy Family put up a lot of points at this meet, it would be a reach to say that had any answers to the power of Berthoud at this meet.

It was nice to see Jeff Richmond of Northridge back in meet results after a brief hiatus. Richmond took honors in the boys 100. Roosevelt, however, took home boys' team honors.

Maxine Ehrman Invitational

For a meet that's not widely regarded as one of the state's most competitive, there definitely was an excess of top marks coming out of this one. And Loveland's girls looked very impressive at this one.

Stephanie Hutsell won the 100 and 400, Kaylee Packham won the 200 (with an exclamation point--I had no idea she is that fast, and she's not big enough to get much of a wind assist even when the wind is over the allowable limit), Maggie Anderson scorched the 100 hurdles with Packham in close tow, Anderson came back and doubled up the 300 hurdles, Taylor Buschy stole the long jump competition, Sydney Spencer took the discus, and the Indians went five-for-five on relays. Doubters are welcome to line up wherever you like, but don't expect a lot of company in that line.

Frankly, the team competition was a lot more interesting on the boys' side. The most noteworthy effort from the boys came from Camren McWee, who cleared 6-8 in the high jump.

Mt SAC Relays (High School)

You're welcome to go to the California page and learn more about this one, but what you're most interested in if you're from Colorado is that Will/Woody/William Kincaid won the 3200 in 9:06.59. A nice effort.

Panther 2 Panther Invitational

When you run the only meet in Colorado Springs, you expect a big crowd. Harrison routinely has to turn folks away from this one even though they limit schools to two entries per event.

What Smoky Hill High School doesn't want to know is that Cheyenne Mountain is breathing down the neck of their all-classification boys' 4x800 record. That record may not be long for this world.

Other sensation marks were posted by Jordan Rand (39-8.5) and Reggie Allison (47-1.5) in the triple jump, Kelsey English (5-8) in the high jump, and several others just a notch below those. David Krumland's earlier-in-the-week pole vault practice paid off at 14-6 here. Alexis Cooks is looking more and more like the girl to beat in 5A throws.

Pine River Invitational

This one was a make-up from Saturday. Unfortunately, the wind got wind of the change of date and showed up as well. Apparently, the wind was working well for the discus throwers, however, as some throwers extended personal bests by a pretty fair margin. There were some nice sprint marks until you notice the 6-8 meter per second trailing winds.

Pueblo City Championships

Now that G'Naya Stewart is eligible under the transfer rule, Pueblo West has a bit more punch on the girls' side. 4A sprinting got a bit more interesting over the weekend.

And, speaking of 4A girls and the transfer rule, welcome back Megan Patterson. 44-0.75 isn't a bad way at all to come back.

Although it was officially billed as the Pueblo City Meet, Rye's Ty Van Oort took honors in both boys' throwing events. The county schools have long participated in this meet as well. That makes the meet a lot more interesting as it adds Pueblo West, Pueblo County, and Rye to the mix.

Ray E. Choate Invitational Track Meet

They hold this meet in Weston. My guess is you don't know where that is. The demons that mess with timing systems apparently know the location of Weston, however.

A quick scan of the results suggests that the Hoehne boys' sprints and sprint relays were the highlight of this meet.

Robert F. Caviness Aurora Invitational

An interesting mix of schools--and maybe the best collection of girls' 100 hurdlers at any meet in the state so far this year. Dior Hall has already lowered her state-best 100 hurdles mark to 13.94. Kami Mendez and Annie Kunz mostly got a good view from behind. I would have liked to have seen this race.

Ron Keller Invitational

Durango hosted their annual invitational to a fairly thin crowd. The wind had, however, settled down quite a bit from what it was in neighboring Bayfield two days earier. And that allowed some of the San Juna Basin notables to start posting some rankings marks. That's not to say, however, that there was no wind. There was actually a fair bit--just not as much as on Thursday. Wind in the San Juan Basin this spring has been a lot like the federal debt--big and out of control.

Joe Maloney (Durango) and John Cusick (Bayfield) did have a nice outing in the 1600, with the final nod going to Maloney--4:34 to 4:36. Maloney's mark might not secure a state spot in 4A, but Cusick's should be good enough for 3A.

Terry Amundson Invitational

Byers is the place. And lots of schools descended on the sleepy litte town east of Denver.

Coley David (Burlington) ventured away from his specialty event and ended up setting a meet record in the 200. Something for the folks in Wray to think about, I suppose. Ethan Browning (Cripple Creek-Victor) went a very nice 6-7 in the high jump. Katie Tapia (also CC-V) went a wind-legal 16-2 to win the long jump.

Overall, a very competitive small-school meet. My apologies, I just discovered I had not posted the results from this meet to the rankings database and so no exceptional performances from this meet show in a list below the Meet Results link.

Thomas Jefferson Twilight I

Caleb Smith is quietly leading the pack of 1A throwers. Smith already has a lot of big meet experience, and this one only adds to it.

Winds messed with a lot at this meet, but didn't keep Karina Ernst from running 11:22 in the 3200, not bad for someone who does not specialize in the 3200. Tiffany Kenney and Chyna Ries both had wind-aided 19-2 marks in the long jump. TJ Frison of Vista Ridge had a wind-legal monster of 22-9 in the long jump.

Weld Central Rebel Round-up

Yuma Bill Kalb Invitational

There's a new small-school sprint name on my radar screen--Makenzie Ault of Sedgwick County. Keep tabs on this one; she figures to be heard from more as the season goes on.

Akron's Logan Merrill continues to impress in the boys' hurdle events. Akron has long been a power in girls' track and field, but I haven't had much opportunity to mention Akron boys on this site. Merrill is a nice change in that trend.