Cheyenne Mountain's boys executed a near-perfect patient pack strategy to dominate the Colorado 4A boys state championship. Photo by Alan Versaw.
This will be our last tour of the NXN-SW region prior to the 2010 regional race.
Utah's season is in the books. Teams are now maintaining training (or not) and waiting for the invitations to be issued. Presumably, the teams waiting for invitations to be issued overlap nicely with those teams maintaining their training program.
In Colorado, the state meet ran on Saturday. While a lot went according to form, many other things did not. Notable non-finishers included Taylor Floming (Monarch), Heather Bates (Pine Creek), and Kailie Hartman (Loveland). Obviously, the results for the teams these girls represent were impacted by the DNFs. Correction: Kailie Hartman was a finisher, just well behind her accustomed position.
It was a Saturday Sweep Special at the state meet. Fort Collins swept the 5A titles in convincing fashion (though Monarch would have made it very interesting in 5A girls if Floming had stayed in the race another 500 or so meters). Cheyenne Mountain swept the 4A titles. And The Classical Academy swept the 3A titles. Expect to see all six teams at the NXN-SW regional.
Heritage came in second in 5A boys and Boulder second in 5A girls. Behind Heritage in the boys race was a big gap. Right behind Boulder, however, it was a tight contest between Arapahoe and Monarch. Highlands Ranch finished fifth, but took a big hit in the team scoring when their usual #3 slipped way back in the field.
Cheyenne Mountain dominated both 4A races, winning by over 100 points in the boys' contest and a smaller, but still convincing, margin over Evergreen in the girls' race.
The Classical Academy defeated Alamosa in a rousing contest in 3A boys, while TCA's girls marched through the field for an 8th consecutive 3A state title with their lead runner suffering from illness.
In somewhat of a surprise, Highlands Ranch's Eleanor Fulton finished third, behind Kelsey Lakowske of Boulder and Erin Hooker of Fort Collins.
The best boys times of the day were posted by Spencer Wenck (Palmer Ridge), Will Kincaid (Columbine), and Danny Carney (Dakota Ridge).
Colorado State Cross Country Meet
In New Mexico, regionals tend not to eliminate many teams and none of prime suspects were eliminated. In fact, the Albuquerque Academy boys and Los Alamos girls both perfect-scored their regional meets. Except for an interloper in second place, the Los Alamos boys would have perfect-scored their region as well.
Rio Rancho's boys advanced to state, but not in a convincing sort of way. There is reason to hope, however, that Caleb Rubalcaba will be back in racing flats for the state meet. That might effect some changes in both the physical and psychological order of things.
Eldorado's girls and La Cueva's boys dominated their region, as expected. Hobbs was upset by Clovis in their region, but still advances to state. State might mean just a little more to the Hobbs boys team than the regional meet did.
I haven't seen word on how Shiprock's boys fared this weekend.
You're going to have to take my word on all this, because I can't link you directly to the results and I don't have time to reformat and post the results to MileSplit.
Arizona, likewise, played out pretty close to expectations in their divisional qualifying contests.
Will Firth (Brophy) and Jorge Martinez (Alhambra) may have been expected to battle it out for the boys Division 1 Section 1 title, but were upstaged by Bernie Montoya of Cibola. Alhambra still easily advances, however.
The Xavier Prep girls advanced easily while resting a few of their regulars. Desert Vista did, however, win the Division 1 Section 1 team tally by a score of 34 - 38 over Xavier. Save your biggest font for the headline if that outcome repeates itself at state.
Mesa Mountain View swept the titles, to nobody's surprise, in Division 1, Section 2. Corona del Sol beat Highland for the Division 1, Section 3 title. Highland returned the favor on the girls' side of the ledger.
Billy Orman and Rolonda Jumbo have secured their spots at state. Marcos de Niza and Kylee Kieser were dominant in their divisional races.
Arizona Front Page, with links to all divisional results
And in Nevada, as elsewhere, regional surprises were tough to find.
Up north, the Carson girls dominated the region while the Galena and Reno boys (in that order) dominated their side of the region with Bryan Jordan taking an easy individual title.
The southern regions yielded more of the same-old-same-old. Katie Gorczyca and Nick Hartle blew away their respective fields. The strongest teams advancing to state look to be Foothill, Coronado, and Centennial among the boys and Coronado, Green Valley, Palo Verde, and Arbor View among the girls. Next week will, of course, tell us a great deat more.
Nevada Regional Results and Articles