Freshman females keep sweeping first place titles in Northern Colorado track, and this week’s Athletes Honey Milk Athlete of the week selection, Riley Cooney of Mountain View, is another front-runner to the theme of freshman phenomenons. Cooney took first at last week’s Windjammer Invitational in Englewood and has been gradually getting faster as the season progresses.
“I just go out and I just run,” Cooney stated. “All of the training and everything, it’s just starting to come together. It’s partly that I’m just figuring everything out, and Englewood I loved that course so much. The rain felt great and I just felt great the whole time.”
Cooney led the race for most of the course, and finished with a personal record of 18:37.00.
“I just took it and ran away with it,” Cooney said.
Cooney may be new to Mountain View High School, but she is no newbie to competitive running or to her Mountain View teammates. She has two brothers on the cross country team, Dayton, senior, and Dixon, junior, and has been running during the summers with the team for the past couple of years. Mountain View cross country and track coach, Kevin Clark, is a physical education teacher at Conrad Ball Middle school, where Cooney attended previously. Clark said he’s had his eye on Cooney’s talent, and was anticipating her arrival to the cross country team this fall.
“I feel like I’ve really had a close eye on the amount of miles she’s been doing,” Clark said. “She’s slowly building her mileage. There’s a progressive 6-7 year plan as she’s had some summer practices for the past couple of years with the team.”
A bigger result of Cooney’s success is the resurgence of Mountain View’s varsity girls’ team as a whole. Two other freshman, Kayla Smith (6th at Windjammer) and Caroline Foster (25th), are in the top 5 scoring positions, and with senior veteran, McKayla Grey thrown into the mix, Mountain View girls’ cross country is battling its way back to the forefront. Clark said that a top two place at conference and the regional meet, followed by a top five finish at the state championship is completely attainable. Cooney and Clark said her personal goals are to have a top-ten finish alongside Grey.
“I’m learning from every meet every week and I’m seeing what works and what doesn’t,” Cooney said.
“I haven’t really had a goal all season. I’ve kind of just being going out and seeing what I can do. In the next few weeks I will be deciding how to strategize for state,” Cooney continued.
Another great race this past week was run by Monarch High School senior Kirk Webb who also had a first place finish at the Andy Myers Cross Country Invitational.
“[The race] felt pretty good,” Webb, also a team captain this year, said. “Coming into the race I was going for the school record, which is 15:34. I started the race pretty hard and once I got to the two mile I was at 10:30, so I realized I wasn’t going to get the record, so I kind of eased into a rhythm and finished the race.”
Webb had a PR earlier this season at Liberty Bell (15:41), and still has plans to break the record before the season’s end. What his main focus is now, however, is the state championship.
“There’s a handful of really great runners, in especially 5A,” Webb said. “All of us are going to have our eye on Danny Carney from Dakota Ridge. He’s such a stud and he’s been dominating all year.”
With a PR of 15:25.50 and an undefeated title this season, Webb makes a valid point about Carney.
“In cross country, nothing is set in stone though; everything is day to day,” Webb continued.
Webb said that on a team level, Monarch may not have enough depth to beat Fort Collins, but Fairview is definitely going to be close competition. Monarch High School track and cross country coach, Kent Rieder, is also looking forward to state in the next few weeks. This weekend Rieder will pull the varsity girls and boys teams from the Fossil Ridge meet to do a workout instead, and let the JV teams run in their place.
“We are a relatively low mileage team compared to other top programs in the state and nationally, and we focus on peaking for the state meet and NXN-SW,” Reider said.
Webb has a collection of titles and medals not just from cross country, but also track, which is ironic, then, that his love of running was found only after a “crush” convinced him to do the sport.
“I thought I was a basketball player coming into high school,” Webb, who has also played basket ball the past three years, said. “I did track in the spring to stay in shape for basketball. My first year I didn’t take it seriously and then a girl I had a crush on convinced me to do cross country in the fall and that’s when I fell in love with the sport. I just work really hard at it every day and that’s why I became so successful at it.”
Webb’s blatant success and also love for his teammates keep him involved in running. Webb described team traditions, like pasta dinners before each meet, and said that a team is a support group.
“We’re as close as it gets,” Webb said. “We’re almost too close, our guys and girls both. I think I’m with them more than I’m not. I feel very fortunate to be on a team where I love all of my teammates.”
Webb plans to continue running in college and has been made several scholarship offers from various schools across the country. Webb also anticipates this coming track season, and hopes to break the 1600m state record.
Congratulations to both of this week’s well-deserving Athletes Honey Milk Athletes of the Week.