There’s a sense in which March is the preseason of high school track and field in Colorado. April and May, then, become the regular season, where performances are laid down for keeps. That all started in a serious way this past weekend.
Just as we did yesterday with the girls, we’ll take individual performances of the week first, followed by a relatively brief look at team performances. We’ll waste no further time, then, with introductory issues but move directly to individual performances, with a particular eye toward athletes not yet mentioned in this series of articles.
Individuals
There was very little movement at or near the top of the leader board for 100 meters this past weekend, but I will draw attention to a couple of promising developments. Fountain-Fort Carson’s Lawrence Walker went 11.01 with a slight negative wind at the Pueblo County Hornet. That moves Mr. Walker to #3 on the 5A list.
In 3A, Devyn Lauer of Platte Valley got his season going with an 11.05. That not only moves Lauer to #3 in 3A, but his effort came against a -1.8 wind. On that basis, it’s possible to hypothesize that Lauer can run with anyone in 3A. In any case, we’ll find out in the weeks to come. For what it’s worth, 3A has most of the current top places on the statewide leaderboard. That’s not normally where the state’s fastest 100 field assembles, but maybe this isn’t a normal year.
Yuma’s Clay Robinson opened defense of his 2021 2A state title with an 11.19 at the Weld Central Rebel Roundup. But, it was also accompanied with a +3.9 wind, meaning Robinson will have to wait for another day to get on the board.
At 200 meters, Brandon Hills of Vista Ridge moved to within one-hundredth of a second of the top 5A time of the season with a 22.07. D’Andre James of Regis Jesuit kept his spikes in the hunt with a 22.20 at the Aurora City Championships. Both were wind-legal.
And, the aforementioned Devyn Lauer got firmly on the 3A board with a 22.22 (-3.0). Look for bigger things from Lauer, and soon. The wind won’t stay negative forever.
Brandon Bate became the first 3A runner of the year to slip below 50 seconds for 400 meters with a 49.41 at the University Bulldog. Andrew Muncy of Skyline slightly improved his 4A standing with a 49.58 at the Erie Tiger. Completing the new sub-50s for the weekend, Julio Atondo of Fort Collins turned a 49.98. Ashton Whisler of Erie ran 50.37. It’s only a matter of time until Erie has two sub-50s in the pen.
The top of the 800 meter leader board is all 4A. This past weekend, Connor McCormick of Longmont and Jackson Shorten of Mountain View left their imprints with the two best times in the state this season—1:53.73 and 1:54.98. With Zane Bergen at #3, this one could be a doozy when state rolls around.
So far, 17 guys have slipped under two minutes, and all of them are either 4A or 5A. Trevor Lewis of DeBeque, however, improved the 1A standard by several seconds over the weekend, running a 2:02.80 at the Mickey Dunn. You might remember Lewis as the guy who won the 1A 800 and 1600 last summer, and finished second in the 3200. He’s back for more this year, evidently.
Jackson Shorten—see the 800 discussion above—moved all alone into the top 1600 time in the state on the season with a 4:17. With that water over the dam, expect to see a large number of sub-4:20s in the next week or two.
Conner Kennedy of Heritage took over the 5A lead with a 4:23.
If you just caught yourself thinking, “But what about all those times at Chandler Rotary,” those times do not count in the state rankings. Something about low altitude and oxygen density, I think.
Christian Groendyk of Fort Collins used the district track to post the best 3200 time in the state with a 9:20 over the weekend. Dalton Kaines was three seconds back at 9:23. It was a good day for 3200s at the Altitude Running meet. Those are now the top two times in 5A.
Henry Ilyasova planted a flag at the top of Mt. 3A with a time of 9:36 at the Pueblo County Hornet.
Thirty-three athletes around the state have now run sub-10s. None of them, however, are 1A or 2A. Not even close, really.
It’s not exactly the case that the guys at the top of the 110 hurdles leader board were unknowns before this week, but there was some serious rewriting of the standards taking place this past weekend even so. PJ Robinson of Cherry Creek went to the top with a 14.32. Carsen Bruns of Rampart went to second with a 14.34. And Malique Singleton of Grandview went to third with a 14.74. All wind-legal. Nobody else in the state, any classification, has broken 15 seconds, with or without the help of the wind. The 5A Boys 110 hurdles is going to be a dandy, at least three deep.
Derek Allen of Widefield bumped the 4A standard to 15.15. Logan Tullis of Cedaredge pushed the 2A standard to 16.23 on his home track. Given that the wind on that one was -1.2, there has to be more where that came from. Jacob Jefferson of Arickaree/Woodlin pushed the 1A standard to 17.30 at the University Bulldog.
If you’re curious as to the whereabouts of Arickaree/Woodlin, you picked the right time to ask. Arickaree is the name of an actual place in Colorado, but it’s not the kind of place that’s difficult to miss as you drive down the highway. What is left of the town of Arickaree sits along US 36 in southeastern Washington County. Even less is left of the Arikaree River—the river has already lost the ‘c’ in its name. The overwhelming majority of you have never been to Arickaree, nor even close. And, Woodlin is a portmanteau that merges the town names of Woodrow and Lindon. Those two locations, both of roughly the same status as Arickaree, are also in Washington County, but more toward southwestern Washington County. If they ever get around to consolidating the two remaining schools, maybe they could call it Woodlinaree.
If you don’t know where Washington County is, try going a few miles west from Yuma. If you don’t know where Yuma is, I’m not sure I can help you.
I need to get back to track. I think we were at the 300 hurdles.
Bennett Feldenkirchen may have read this article (or at least its equivalent) last week and found whatever motivation was needed. In any case, he lowered the 4A standard for the 300 hurdles to 39.05 at the Erie Twilight on Friday. That gets Mr. Feldenkirchen’s season back on schedule. Resurrection Christian’s Tre Garcia moved the 3A standard to 39.38. Jack Wetterling took up ownership of the 5A #2 at 39.85, only to be threatened by Myles Wilson of Ralston Valley with a 39.86 on Saturday.
In politics, people get upset when you move the goalposts. They probably would get upset if you did it in football, too. In track and field, however, it happens every week. And there was a lot of moving of the goalposts in the 300 hurdles last week.
Sliding over into the field events, we’ll start at the high jump. Except that there was almost nothing to start with from last week’s high jump results.
The biggest takeaway of note was that Scottie Vines of DeBeque moved into the 1A lead with a 6-4 effort. Vines finished fourth at state last year. He’s having none of that this year.
Mason Goodwin of Mancos moved his 2A lead up to 6-3 at his home meet on Friday. Let me know if I need to do a location lesson on Mancos—I actually lived there for a while.
Among the large schools, the biggest new news of the week was Zane Cole of Grandview clearing 6-4. Inasmuch as Grandview is a threat to win the 5A boys title, that one could end up being kind of noteworthy.
Moving to the pole vault, Quin Dukes of Erie moved to #2 in 4A with a vault of 14-8.
The big movement in the pole vault, however, was in 2A, where Kailer Schmidt of Limon got some traction with a clearance of 12-2 at Wiggins and Jace Peters of Lake County went 12-1 at Meeker.
Wait, Jace Peters? Isn’t he a distance runner? A cross country dude? As it turns out, he’s a lot of things. Mr. Peters may be thinking of dabbling in the decathlon over the summer—so far, he has marks in seven events, six of them over the last weekend alone. The best of those marks are a 10:15 3200, a 54.71 400, a 2:06 800, and the 12-1 pole vault. So far, no hurdles.
It wasn’t a great weekend for the long jump. Nobody busted into the statewide top ten last weekend. The high jump highlight of the week belongs to Kade Hankins of Dove Creek. Mr. Hankins took the 1A standard beyond 20 feet with a leap of 20-4 at the Mancos Bluejay.
And that takes us to the triple jump. The triple jump had only a slightly better weekend than the long jump. Notably, Temesgen Fanning of Frontier Academy went to #2 in 3A and #3 statewide with a wind-legal effort of 44-8. CKC of Jefferson Academy, who’s been having some difficulty getting his triple jump unwound again after a stellar indoor season of jumping, went 42-6 to claim the #4 spot in 3A. Jaxson Yungwitz of Yuma took control of the 2A lead with a 42-2.25 at Weld Central. The horizontal jump pits at Weld Central must run east and west, because the winds were almost entirely legal for the jumps and almost entirely not so for the sprints and hurdles.
That leaves us with shot put, discus, and relays. We’ll start with shot put.
Mohamed Ibrahim (put a sticky note on that name) took over the state lead with a 56-3 effort at his home meet in Wiggins. Impressive, no? You haven’t seen the beginning of impressive.
Bryant Schoenthal of Wray went 53-7 for #3 in the state and #2 in 2A—also at Wiggins. William Knight of Durango and Kyle Bigley of Pueblo Central went to #2 and #3 in 4A (#4 and #5 in the state) in meets at Bayfield and Pueblo County, respectively. Connor Showalter of Mancos chucks one 49-9.5 and only gets #3 in 2A. It was a big weekend for the shot put.
But not nearly as big of a weekend as it was for the discus.
How big was the discus weekend?
Well, Mohamed Ibrahim threw 185-2 and Bryant Schoenthal threw 178-2. Poor Mr. Schoenthal is left to wonder what it takes to get a headline here. Cashing in my status as an unbiased observer, I’m going to suggest that it’s likely Friday’s winds had something to do with the length of these throws. According to what I’m told by people who ought to know, the ideal wind for the discus is a quartering wind—a wind that arrives at a right angle to the flight of the platter. Close to a right angle is good enough. This gives the discus a little extra left and, thus, a longer ride. I believe it’s important that the wind blows across the thrower’s body to the point where the implement is released, but I’m less certain I’ve understood correctly at that point.
Regardless of the meteorological technicalities, both Mr. Ibrahim and Mr. Schoenthal sent the implements on very long rides. They are now #1 and #2 in 2A and in the state, and deservedly so.
Austin Appiah of Rangeview snared the 5A lead in the discus over the weekend with a throw of 161-1. That has him currently at #3 in the state.
Younger brother Laith Ibrahim threw 159-6 to nail down #3 in 2A and #5 in the state. Unless you’re really good, you don’t want to be throwing in 2A this year.
With that, we can talk about relays.
Holy Family continues to tell a story to anyone who will listen. They trimmed their 4×100 time down to 42.14 at Erie on Friday. That’s #1 in the state. We’ll see if they keep that team together for state or if individual events will force them to break one or more of their relays up. My hunch is that they end up pointing everything at the 100, 200, 4×100, and 4×200. We’ll see.
And, as a note of interest, Holy Family is the only non-5A team in the top 11.
Also running a very nice 4×100 over the weekend was Eaglecrest. Their 43.58 moved them to #4 in 5A and #5 in the state. As you might expect, things get pretty dense behind the Raptors.
Centauri put a little of their football speed to use on the track, setting the 2A standard at 44.27 at the Pueblo County Hornet on Saturday.
Moving up to the 4×200, Eaglecrest had another effort that landed them at #5 statewide. This time, it was a 1:30.39 at the Aurora City Championships.
Centauri assumed control of 2A with a 1:31.49. Centauri and Eaglecrest, schools which share the same school colors (and almost the same mascots), shared very similar relay strategies last weekend.
The event that ends almost every track meet is the 4×400. Niwot stood pat on the state lead over the weekend, but Roosevelt closed the state and 4A gap by running a 3:28.43 at the Altitude Invitational. That has the Riders within three seconds of Niwot. While that’s not particularly close, you take hope where you can find it.
The Classical Academy made a big leap to #1 in 3A with a 3:32.59. Cedaredge staked their claim to #1 in 2A with a 3:36.52.
That leaves the 4×800. In that event, Central Grand Junction sent everything they had at it and ended up at #2 in 4A with an 8:09.61 at the Mickey Dunn. That’s also #3 in the state for the time being. In this case, I know names, so I’ll shout out the perpetrators of a very nice 4×800: Tyler Stogsdill, Jackson Edwards, Jordan Leblow, and Shalom Trowbridge. It was essentially a solo effort, as our most early-season standout 4x800s. Of note, the same crew ran a 3:32 4×400 at the end of the meet.
Arickaree/Woodlin took over the 1A lead with a 9:22.53 at the University Bulldog.
For the most part, it wasn’t a weekend of big doings in the 4×800. We likely won’t see a lot of big doings in that relay until the last two or three weeks before state. This is a relay that typically needs to marinate for a while before the big performances come out.
Teams
At this point in the season, a mediocre showing by a team at a meet doesn’t tell you anything. Prom, spring break, split squads, ACT tests, and any number of other factors might mean a particular team didn’t have an especially strong showing at a meet.
A solid showing at a meet, on the other hand, does give you an idea of what teams have the goods to put a lot of points together. Those are the teams to give some extra attention to as you think ahead toward state.
In this article, I’ll dial in on the teams with particularly strong showings over the last week, especially the weekend.
The overall biggest-deal meet of the week was the Altitude Invitational in Fort Collins. Fort Collins nipped Rocky Mountain for that crown. That doesn’t tell us a lot new about either team as we already knew both teams were pretty good. Neither team, however, was able to slam an exclamation point on their win.
Down at the Aurora City Championships, Grandview and Cherokee Trail exchanged blows like prize fighters. Grandview prevailed in the end, 188.35 to CT’s 168.85. Mark both of these teams down as serious contenders for a state title.
On the Western Slope, Central Grand Junction (4A) outpointed Fruita Monument (5A) for the Mickey Dunn title. If you haven’t picked up yet that CGJ has a good team this year, you’ve missed something, but the level of competition will climb a little when they have to face Front Range schools.
Durango absolutely dominated the Pine River (Bayfield) meet, but the Demons are cursed to be a 4A school in a 1A/2A/3A corner of the state.
Rock Canyon claimed the crown at the LPS Spring Break duals. The Jaguars clearly have a good team, but we haven’t yet had a clean look at just how good. To date, they’ve been a sleeper, but one worth keeping an eye on.
At the Pueblo County Hornet, there was no clearly dominant team. Fountain-Fort Carson was there but failed to shut the door on folks as we’re accustomed to FFC doing.
The Erie Twilight provided a very tight battle between Mountain View and Erie. Neither team could deliver a knockout blow at this point in the season.
The University Bulldog saw 5A Castle View take top honors, but not by a margin big enough to leave a 5A-sized impression. TCA and Frontier Academy were close at second and third. By virtue of that, Frontier Academy gains a little extra traction in the 3A race.
Rifle won the Cedaredge Invitational, but without the kind of show of force that could readily launch dreams. Rifle is good, but it’s not clear yet how good.
The joy got spread around a lot at the Wiggins Invitational, but both Wiggins and Limon have reason to leave the meet with feelings of optimism.
Peyton, a good 2A team, took top honors at the Kiowa Klassic. The meet wasn’t a great showcase for the Panthers, but they remain a team to be wary of. The Panthers are a couple breakthroughs short of being a top 2A contender at the moment, but they’re not far away.
Ralston Valley dominated at the Arvada City Championships, but it was a meet of small scale. The Mustangs will have to step up when bigger competition opportunities come their way.
Florence, which clearly has the best boys track and field team they’ve had in years, won at Salida. This is another in a series of steps forward for the Huskies. It’s likely a case of build this year, then see what happens next year for the Huskies. Filling out a few event areas with competitive athletes could push this team to the top tier by next year.
Grand Valley won at Meeker, and decisively so. The Cardinals are a bit like Florence—showing very well this year relative to previous years. They may be a year away from having the team of their dreams. And there is certainly enough talent coming back next year to dream those kind of dreams.
Elizabeth won at Weld Central, but the top talent at the meet was too thinly distributed to look at this one as a landmark kind of showing. Elizabeth has some opportunities coming down the road where a meet title would mean a great deal more.
Going back to midweek, Chatfield dominated at the Jeffco Qualifier #2. So far, Chatfield has mostly avoided the biggest competition (though Valor provided some solid competition at this one). I’m waiting for the Chargers to land in a big weekend invitational to show how good they really are. This might be one of your 5A surprise teams of the season, but there’s a qualifier on that assessment for now. The Chargers have spots of top-end talent, but depth figures to be a matter of some concern with this team.
