Colleen Koenig is back as Arapahoe's top returning runners, and there's been a lot of buzz about how good that team will be. Colorado Track XC file photo.
I will begin this as I did the last two pieces, by laying out a few caveats. One, I have only a little bit more inside information than the average high school cross country fan in Colorado. Like the rest of you at this time of year, I'm constantly learning new things that have potenial bearing on how the cross country season will play out. In what follows, I do not propose to be anything remotely resembling a king maker. All that follows is one man's educated guesswork.
If a few teams find some extra motivation in their place of inclusion on (or omission from) this list, so much the better. Motivation is a great thing.
With that said, here are my hunches for how 5A will stack up come late October:
GIRLS
There's one thing a lot of the top projected top 5A teams for this fall have in common. That one thing in common is a new face. Except for incoming freshmen, I'm going to work on the assumption that each of the new faces has half a season of sub-varsity eligibility to work through, so we won't necessarily see the full strength of some of these teams until sometime around the beginning of October. With that out on the table, let's take a look at best of the big school programs.
1. Fort Collins - It's tough to put the team that finished 6th at NXN last year and lost only one member to graduation any place other than first. Still, it may be a precarious first. There isn't a lot of margin of error in Colorado. It starts with Erin Hooker, the top-ranked returning runner in all of Colorado, regardless of classification. What isn't clear is how things will fill in behind here. You have Abbey Ervin coming over from Fossil Ridge. You have last year's crop of outstanding freshmen--Audrey Oweimrin, Kira Miklos, and Michelle Kramer. You have last year's sophomore class of Maddie Staab and Taleah McClintock. And you have a new freshman class for this year to work into the mix. That's a lot of questions to answer about who fits where unless you start in with the dreaded cycle of injuries. So, as nice as it is to be on top, it doesn't come without its issues. Keeping this many talented folks feeling like they're making the kind of contribution they want to make is no easy task. On paper, though, this is an incredible team.
2. Monarch - Maybe. It's hard to believe that Claire Green finished fourth on last weekend's Monarch team time trial. I can think of a few teams that would be ecstatic to have a #4 like Green (not that anyone is sure she's staying at #4 for the Coyotes). Ashley Litoff clearly has made some strides, literally and figuratively, since last year's cross country season. Taylor Floming, Kaitlyn Benner, and Rebecca Richmond all look solid. And one thing the Coyotes should have working in their favor is a little residual hunger from last year. I think I speak safely when I tell you that the #15 finish at NXN is still not going down easy. The best reason for ranking Monarch second at the beginning of the season is the talent they have. The worst thing about it is the talent the teams behind them have.
3. Cherry Creek - Putting the Jordyn Colter question aside for the moment, Olivia Anderson is the established front runner on this team. And, she's a pretty solid front runner to have. Colter will, however, add some serious punch to the lineup, wherever she settles in. Rebekah Bosler, Ryan Williams, and Samantha Bremner are back and should be counted on for big contributions. Don't expect Creek to be stuck in neutral early in the season. This team should be very competitive very quickly or will likely struggle to keep pace with the rest of the talent-rich teams at the top of 5A. There's been a lot of talk up and down the Front Range about this team and with talk comes expectations. We should know soon enough if Cherry Creek is ready to keep pace with the teams at the top.
4. Arapahoe - There's been a bunch of buzz about this team. We won't see them at Lori Fitzgerald on opening weekend, but they won't exactly be escaping notice at their own invitational. Devan Foster comes over from Chaparral with designs on helping to take this team to a title. Colleen Koenig, Emily Wolff, and Lauren Lipski return a solid nucleus from last year's team. The Warriors came surprisingly close to winning it all last fall, and undoubtedly feel like they have something left to prove for this year. It will definitely take five under 20:00 to do it this year in 5A, and we'll have to wait and see if Arapahoe can produce that. As of this moment, it's not clear that they can, but fall has a way of revealing the content of your summer.
5. Mountain Vista - I'm passing over a couple of absolutely top-tier teams to put Mountain Vista in this position. We should get an early read on how good Mountain Vista is at the Arapahoe Invitational. The one thing the Golden Eagles don't have that each of the other top 5A teams has is a certified front runner. But, there really isn't much question that Mountain Vista has the girls to put five in under 20:00 this season. On account of that, the crew of Brooke and Brittany Mackay, Karlee Schwartzkopf, Lindsey Smith, and Laura Londono figure to be causing lots of problems for lots of people this fall.
Boys
1. Fort Collins - It looks like Rory Schulte may be ready to join the ranks of Tait Rutherford, Jeff Abbey, Griffin Hay, and John Patterson. If so, we will certainly be seeing a team with potential to be one of the best teams in Colorado history. We could talk about #6 and #7, too, but we won't. This team has no apparent weaknesses heading into the season. The dangers here are strictly of the internal variety. It still requires that the go-to guys keep their heads together for the magic to happen.
2. Mountain Vista - If Fort Collins stumbles, these are the most likely guys to pick up the pieces. As good as Stephen Chipman is, unless he's taken a serious step up this summer, there's no guarantee that he's at the top of the roster this fall. The Golden Eagle boys are loaded, too. You'll be learning names like Andrew Walton, Eric Steiner, and Noel Wagner this fall if you don't know them already. But they aren't figuring on showing the opposition much of anything except that backs of their singlets.
3. Dakota Ridge - This is an underrated team. Danny Carney is at least a top pick to win the individual title. Ryan Kramlich is ready to shine. I don't have any inside information into how the rest of the lineup is going to shake out (though I know enough to be pretty sure there are some questions to be answered), but there are a lot of solid options. Michael Glade and Austin Ard should be making bigger contributions than last year.
4. Fairview - The Knights have a lot of cross country tradition, and I'm counting on some of that coming through this fall. Fairview hasn't always lived up to expectations in recent years, but they look like a very good team on paper coming into this fall. Tyler Taydus and Ricardo Kaempfen are the big guns. They have a ways to go to compete with the classification's biggest guns, but they need to be top-20 kind of guys at state for the Knights to have a solid chance. What makes things look brightest for Fairview is the kind of solid depth at 3, 4, and 5 that guys like Bridger Tomlin, Kyle Lund, and Cory Munsch are capable of providing. Keep an eye on this team.
5. Rock Canyon - Okay, a lot of people will question this one, but I think the time has come for the Jaguars to mature. They have a solid leader in Jake Dysart. Dysart clearly has top-ten at state kind of potential. Conner Johnston is solid behind him. Austin Shoemake and Max Will should be ready to take the next step up. Rock Canyon has a history of bringing guys up to about a 17:15 - 17:30 kind of level. They need to break through that barrier this fall. Once they do, they will be the top-tier kind of team they've dreamed of being. They have to bust through the ceiling they've defaulted to in the past.
Colleen Koenig is back as Arapahoe's top returning runners, and there's been a lot of buzz about how good that team will be. Colorado Track XC file photo.