In the short list of serious individual title contenders, Taylor Stack and Ben Espinola rank high. Colorado Track XC file photo by Alan Versaw.
We've been slowly building toward the classification level of preview since July 1. The time has come to pull away a little from the heavy use of rankings and identify the key meets, teams, and individuals that figure to tell the story of the season.
Key Meets
Look for two early meets to reveal strengths and weeknesses of the contenders. Obviously, a large portion of 3A can be expected to turn up at the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede. Although it's very, very early in the season, much will be revealed on the Norris Penrose/Bear Creek Park Property. In following weeks, look for the St. Vrain Invitational (north) and the Pueblo Central Invitational (south) to do some more serious sorting of the teams. By mid-September, we should have a very good idea of who the strongest contenders are. As scattered as the top contenders in ...