Late in the race, Bernie Montoya begins his counter-surge that would reel in the premature surge of Ben Saarel. Photo by Alan Versaw.
On a nearly perfect day for racing, American Fork enjoyed a nearly perfect race.
No, the Cavemen didn't leave the course with a perfect score of 15, but they did about as well as could be expected in a 33-team field, scoring only 36 points to 163 for Davis in second.
From a very early stage, it was apparent that American Fork had things under control. five guys up front will make that possible for you. And, American Fork had those five in Brayden McLelland, Connor McMillan, Tyson Green, Zac Jacklin, and Caleb Thompson, Davis hung well through #3 over the first two miles, but three is only 60% of the guys you need to score. And Davis's top three lost some ground in the final mile. All of that made for an old-fashioned thrashing by American Fork. The 1 - 5 pack time for American Fork went from 15:03 to 15:25 for a team time of 76:12. easily the best team time ever posted at the Nike-SW regional in the six years of its existence.
Los Alamos edged Herriman, another Utah program, on a tie-breaker for third, though the two teams could scarcely have come to identical teams scores in more diverse fashion. For Los Alamos is was a pack thing. For Herriman, it was a case of scoring well through 3 and then hanging on just enough at 4 and 5.
It is now the particular fate of Los Alamos to continue practicing for a week, not knowing if the at-large big will come their way or not. And that kind of position comes with a lot an anguish. Over the next week, there will be a lot of "Did Los Alamos keep it close enough to a strong enough team to merit an at-large bid?" kind of questions. And, there's no way to answer that kind of question until we see what happens at next Saturday's regional contests.
Despite Los Alamos's encroachment into the top three, the top ten teams were dominated in a serious way by Utah schools. The Beehive State claimed six of the top ten places, leaving two each for New Mexico and Colorado. And so all of our suspicions about the strength of the 2012 Utah contingent were confirmed--and perhaps even amplified--on the Toka Sticks course. There can be little question but what the state of Utah is currently running the best boys cross country in the region.
One honor that did get away from Utah, however, was the individual title. With about 500 meters to go in the race, however, it seemed certain that Park City's Ben Saarel was going to nail that one down, too. Saarel had broken from the pursuit and fashioned a seemingly insurmountable lead over Bernie Montoya in second, but Saarel's move came just a bit too soon. Saarel's pace weakend, and the gap behind him began to shrink.
As the finish line delayed its arrival, Saarel's legs softened and a strong surge from Montoya pushed the Cibola (AZ) senior into the lead. Montoya went on for the win in 14:48, smashing the old course record and finishing less than a second off of Luke Puskedra's meet record from 2007.
And, as you might have expected, places 3 - 10 were heavy on Utah entries. Jordan Cross, Jake Heslington, Michael Finch, McLelland and McMillan made it six of the top 10 individual places for Utah, matching the count of Utah entries in the top ten teams.