The Montezuma-Cortez, Mancos and Dolores cross-country teams met up for the second weekend in a row on Saturday for the Montezuma-Cortez Ancient Trails 5K Invitational.
As the Panthers’ last regular season meet, head coach Paul Koops saw the race as a good warm-up for their regional meet in Delta on October 23.
Sonny Boren (18:43) turned in his best time of the season in a ninth place finish. He was followed by Josh Ramos (19:42) in 15th, Ben Castillo-Calvillo (22:22) in 44th and Brenden Quinonez (23:27) in 49th.
Blair Rice (26:05), Riley Whiteskunk (26:06), Noah Peterson (27:29), Kyle Talley (29:43) and Tristen Harris (32:20) rounded out the Panther boys, who finished sixth as a team.
The M-CHS girls finished fourth as a team, with Emma Thissen leading the way with an 18th place finish (24:56). Corinne Damore (26:00) was next in 29th and Regina Schuster was just thirty seconds behind to finish 32nd. Rachel Zetts (27:35) and Lynda LaPaz (28:42) were 38th and 43rd.
A spot higher in the girls’ team standings were the Mancos Blue Jays, who were led by Brittney Peacock (23:45) in eighth place and Emma Most (24:07) in 12th. Kaylee Rose (25:26) finished in 24th, and Jessalyn Bay-Voit (26:26) and Mimi Archuleta (29:18) finished out the group in 31st and 45th.
The Mancos boys team also finished in third place, even without its top three runners, who head coach Brady Archer is resting prior to regionals.
Without Ro Paschal, Simon Kearns or Nic Archuleta, the Blue Jays were led by Jake McKie (19:38) and Asa Kearns (19:57), who finished in 14th and 17th place.
Teslin Stecher (20:37), Vincent Grego (21:22), Caleb Yoder (21:26) and Zane Wilson (21:35) all finished within a minute of each other for 27th, 29th, 30th and 35th.
Andrew Christensen (21:56), Alex Fleitz (24:53) and Joseph Knezek (28:14) were the final Blue Jays, finishing 40th, 56th and 66th.
The Dolores Bears did not score as a team in either race, running just two girls and three boys.
Junior Teegan Hite (23:59) finished in 10th place and Kit Kelly (35:41) finished 57th for the Dolores girls.
On the boys’ side, freshmen Phillip Hufman (20:25) and Brennan Hite (20:27) finished back-to-back for 21st and 22nd place.
“I would love for one of them to shock the world and make it to state this year when we get to regionals,” said head coach Nick Kohler. “It will be tough, but they just keep getting better, so I don’t discount anything that could possibly happen.”
Tristan Holgate (25:05) finished out the Bears’ runners in 57th.
The Dolores and Mancos teams will travel to Monte Vista on Friday for the Eric Wolff Invitational, but in preparation for regionals, neither team will race its varsity runners
Dolores will only take it’s middle school team, for its final race of the season, and Mancos will only run its junior varsity runners.
Koops is also choosing to rest his varsity teams prior to the regional meet, and he has workouts planned to prepare for the course at Delta.
“It’s real flat and it’s real fast,” Koops said. “We’re going to need to have our boys run somewhere around seventeen-flat to make that top fifteen.
“It’s doable,” he continued. “We’ve got to have a couple of great hill workouts, some hard intervals, a couple of good long runs and we’re ready.”
