NXR-SW Week In Review: Labor Day Weekend (updated)

Luis Martinez was on fire under the Albuquerque full moon on Friday night, but Los Alamos took Cleveland by surprise for the team title at the UNM Lobo Invitational. Photo by Blake Wood.

 

Every state in the NXR-SW region was in action over Labor Day Weekeend, so fasten your seatbelt as we take a quick spin through the results of the region and discuss what they tell us:

 

Nevada

Las Vegas Labor Day Classic - Palo Verde ("Green Stick," for the linguistically challenged among us) High School hosted this one and kept it to 2.7 miles. I doubt the race distance has anything to do with the late summer heat in Las Vegas, but it was probably nice nevertheless for the contestants to get to stop almost a half mile short of 5K. Unfortunately, that earlier race termination makes the results a tad more difficult to interpret.

But, there isn't a lot of interpretation required in this case. Two teams stand out: the Centennial boys and the Coronado girls. Both dominated overall (though you have to look at both the FR/SO and JR/SR results to get the full picture). At this point, we can say that Centennial has five guys who are 15:22 or better over 2.7 miles. That's pretty solid. The Coronado girls have five at 19:32 or better, four of them under 19, for 2.7 miles. 

It's an easy call--there are at least two Nevada teams well worthy of our ongoing attention this fall!

 

New Mexico

Almost all the action was focused on the UNM North Golf Course under the Friday night lights. 

UNM Lobo Invitational - Even though it's a big meet, all the teams run in the same division. That makes comparison easy. And, the fact that the race is 5K makes interpretation of the results easy. The main complicating factor here is 5000 feet of altitude (plus or minus whatever changes to oxygen density are made by temperature and barometric pressure). 

Once again, however, not much interpretation is required. Los Alamos blasted everyone in the boys' race and edged 4A rival St. Pius X in the girls' race. Los Alamos took on highly-regarded Cleveland in the boys race and left with half of the score of the favored team. They also left with a team time of 1:23:35, led by Sean Reardon's 16:24. It would appear Los Alamos has been reading their history and finding inspiration therein.

Don't be too quick to write off Cleveland, though. The Storm has a home meet this weekend and may use that as an opportunity to chase away some frustrations.

At this point, the LA boys appear to be ahead of the girls, but the girls are still a very good team. They'll be going by the pack strategy this year. At the Lobo Invite, that played out in the form of all five scoring runners placing between 14 and 19. And, that was just enough to edge out a very good St. Pius team that scored 1-2-8 with their first three runners.

Outside of New Mexico, most of you don't know Jeff Turcotte, coach of the St. Pius X FlyGirls, but if these kind of performances continue, you're bound to hear something from the colorful and ebullient Coach Turcotte (better known as just turX).

Clovis Invitational - Essentially all we have reported from this meet are team scores and a 15:56 3-mile for Hobbs standout Seraiah Pineda. Hobbs could become a team worth watching, but we'll hope for more comprehensive results on Hobbs as the season develops. 

 

Arizona

The Grand Canyon State had two at least two meets with NXR-SW implications written all over them this past weekend.

Sole Sports (etc.) CC Festival - You probably can't guess which team busted out of the gate with a dominating performance on Arizona's opening weekend. Here's a clue, start at the back of the alphabet of school names and start working forward. You'll hit the right team a lot sooner that way.

The Xavier College Prep girls continued their thrashings of Arizona meets this weekend with a 36 - 80 win over Mesa Mountain View. And, the fact that Mesa Mountain View was able to keep it that close speaks highly of them. High enough, in fact, that we're adding MMV to our watch list of teams. Xavier scored 1-4-6-7-8, led by Sarah Fakler at 17:55 for three miles. Fakler, of course, is capable of faster than that but we may have to wait until deeper into the season and cooler temperatures to see it.

If I'm not mistaken, it appears that MMV has picked up a transfer in the name of Billie Dytrt, which has done something to bolster their roster. In any case, they, too, are for real.

On the boys' side, it was all Desert Vista, but boys cross country tends to run deeper than girls in Arizona. So, although Desert Vista also had less than half the score of the second-place team, their winning team total was 88 points. Senior Carter Macey led DV with a 15:43, with the fifth scorer at 16:26. All of this happened, of course, after Bernie Montoya of Cibola started out his season with a win in 14:53.

Peaks Cross Country Invitational - They run this one in Flagstaff at about 7000 feet of elevation. Take that into account when you look at the times.

Truthfully, we're more interested in the girls' results from this meet, as both Page and Flagstaff came in as teams of some reputation. Maybe a little surprisingly, Page got the best of homestanding Flagstaff at this one. Flat's Tatianna Gillick took individual honors with a time of 19:39 (more than 70 seconds ahead of second), but Page totaled 88 to Flag's 101 in the team tally. Both teams have some gap closing to do to become high-level contenders at NXR-SW, but both are teams worth watching.

Tuba City pounded everyone in the boys race. It takes a lot of lung power to blow a Tuba at 7000 feet, but they got it done nevertheless, led by meet titleist Shawn Tsinnijinnie at 17:04.

 

Colorado 

Most of the Colorado teams with big NXR-SW aspirations were in action this weekend, and all of those at one of two meets--the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede or the Arapahoe Warrior Invitational. Although "Stampede" may sound really fast, it isn't. That part of the name more likely describes what happens to a person who hesitates at the first water crossing. Anyhow...

Arapahoe Warrior Invitational - The Mountain Vista Golden Eagles came home with a matched set of trophies from this one. And, frankly, neither were close. Arapahoe finished second to Mountain Vista in both varsity races, but there's a big gap between Mountain Vista and Arapahoe in either gender right now. All the more so when you stop to consider this was Arapahoe's home meet.

Now, as good as Mountain Vista is, Arapahoe can still be a very good team and get manhandled by Mountain Vista. Mountain Vista takes on another big meet at St. Vrain this weekend, so we may get some validation of just how good Mountain Vista is this weekend. For now, though, they look very good. And, their 1-5 spread is very good for both teams

As a sidebar, the Arapahoe Warrior Invitational definitely runs faster than the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede. Historically, though, nobody in Colorado is going to confuse Arapahoe with one of the faster courses in the state. There are challenges on this course.

Oh, and stick a bookmark on the Pine Creek team page. This team will get much better (not that they're bad now) as soon as a top-flight runner on their roster comes out from under Colorado's transfer rule in a few weeks.

Cheyenne Mountain Stampede - There are many teams to watch out of this one. We'll go ladies first.

Monarch nipped Fort Collins for the 5A girls team title at the one. But keep an eye on Fairview. Fairview finished a close third to two teams that are indisputably among the very best in the region. Neither Monarch nor Fort Collins graduated anyone off of their varsity scoring five from last fall. Both have depth like the Marianas Trench. It should be very alarming to anyone planning to make it to NXN that Fairiview finished as close as they did to either of these two juggernauts.

If you turn your attention to the 4A Division II girls race, take note of Battle Mountain and Thompson Valley. Neither of these teams are on a par with Monarch and Fort Collins at this point, but both are very good teams. These are teams that should get bids to NXR-SW and will represent well.

For the boys, Fairview is as good as advertised, maybe even better. Cherry Creek is a very good team as well, but as of this moment, Cherry Creek lacks the strength at #5 that Fairview has already in place. That makes Fairview a substantially bigger threat--at least for the time being. A lot of us would like to see a Mountain Vista-Fairview showdown, but it's not coming any time soon and that opportunity appears to be in the works for this weekend at the St. Vrain Invitational. In the past, Fairview has attended another meet on the St. Vrain weekend, but they appear on the list of teams attending for this year's version of the meet. Any showdown forthcoming, however, would depend on both teams entering their varsity rosters, of course. In the meanwhile, check the 5A boys results for your first glance at how Fairview and Cherry Creek, the top boys teams at the CM Stampede, compared.

 

Utah

I confess I'm still mastering the art of getting full sets of results out of Utah. All I have on the Pre Region 11 meet is a forum posting. But, you can read that and see pretty much all you need to see about Ogden. They're good. And that would include both genders. The Ogden girls have more reputation on their side than the boys, but the boys are clearly at a level this year that they've not been to before. So, let's take a look at the meets for which we do have results.

Pre Region 4American Fork's girls are likely in the same category as Battle Mountain and Thompson Valley of Colorado (see above). This is a team easily good enough to make it to NXR-SW, but probably not one of the most elite of the elites. At least not yet. 20 seconds is a very nice pack on a 5K race in 90+ kind of heat.

This surely isn't one of the bigger eggs to fry on the American Fork schedule, but the AF boys got it done at this meet as well. 

Pre Region 7 - For those tempted to dismiss Herriman after viewing last week's results, please take a look at these (and those of the Utah County Invitational, below). Sure, it's just a pre regional meet with limited competition, but that's still some serious domination up front. And, keep in mind that all of the schools along Utah's Wasatch Front are at elevation (4000 feet +). These are not sea level kind of times. 

Skyline, a Utah girls team of interest, shows in the girls side of the results. Although they didn't do the 1-2 thing that the Herriman boys did, it's clear that the Skyline girls are running with a lot of depth as well.

Utah County Invitational - Herriman was back here on Saturday. Apparently, Herriman likes to compete a lot. 

The meet was run in FR/SO and JR/SR divisions so, for our purposes, it's probably best to stare down the combined version of the results. If you team score this thing, Mountain View comes away the winner over Herriman with nobody else particularly close. And, I'm beginning to think that's probably a pretty fair assessment of where these two teams are with respect to each other and all of 4A, for that matter.

Among the girls, Summer Harper continues to make her case as a potential national finalist come December. Park City was down at least one key runner or the Orem-Park City matchup may have been more interesting to score than it otherwise was.