The Mancos, Montezuma-Cortez and Dolores cross-country teams will kick of their 2016 seasons on Friday, September 2 at the Loyd’s Lake Classic in Monticello, Utah.
Coming off of last year’s third-place finish at the Class 2A Colorado State Championships, the Blue Jays are hungry for another trip to Colorado Springs.
They’ll have to make do without 2016 graduates Ro Paschal, Nic Archuleta, Asa Kearns and Vincent Grego, but with a strong core of returners, head coach Brady Archer is optimistic.
Juniors Simon Kearns, Jake McKie and Caleb Yoder are back after competing at both the cross-country and track state meets last year. And Archer views the trio – along with fellow returning juniors Alex Fleitz and Zane Wilson – as the team’s leaders.
Sophomores Teslin Stecher and Brandon Sehnert also return for the Jays, and newcomers like junior Griff Huver and freshmen Colt Spencer and Nic Baikie round out the group.
“Those guys that are going to be juniors and Teslin put in pretty good mileage this summer,” said Archer. “It helps us out so the younger guys don’t have to shoulder as much, because those junior guys know what it takes.”
Archer also has the luxury of returning experience on his girls squad, as the Lady Jays were without any graduating seniors last season.
This year, they return seniors Emma Most – who finished 45th at state last season – Kaylee Rose, Jessalyn Bay-Voit, Mimi Archuleta, and Hannah Skinner, who qualified for state in her first two years but missed last year due to injuries.
Tack on freshmen Maggie Delaney and Olivia Coppinger and the Lady Jays’ expectations are as high as they’ve been in recent years.
“We went into last season with some expectations, but then because of the injuries and some other things it just didn’t work out,” Archer explained. “But this year, I think with all those girls being seniors, they have the expectation that they want to go out as state qualifiers at the very least.”
Neither of the Panthers’ teams had any state qualifiers last season. But with strong returners and after dropping in Class 3A, they’re hoping to send both male and female competitors to Colorado Springs this season.
Senior Josh Ramos may be the Panthers best hope on the boys side, as head coach Paul Koops said he’s in as good of shape as any male athlete he’s had coming into the season in many years.
“He ran 45-mile weeks the last five weeks of summer,” he explained. “So he’s really ready to roll. I’m excited for him.”
Joining Ramos are fellow seniors Blair Rice, Riley Whiteskunk, Micah Hightower, Marcus Amrine and Michael Vanek, juniors Sonny Boren and Reid Littlefield, sophomore Ben Castillo-Calvillo and freshman Will Brown.
The Lady Panthers return expierenced runners as well.
Juniors Emma Thissen, Regina Schuster and Lynda La Paz are all back, as is sophomore Corinne Damore.
Koops and the Lady Panthers have also welcomed Cougar LeSueur, Caisey Duran, Sam Bagge and freshman Maya LaMunyon.
After the drop in class, M-CHS is now a member in the Intermountain League. It will be an exciting new challenge for the Panthers, as the league produced last year’s state championship boys team in Alamosa, and Koops said he expects Bayfield to be tough.
“I think we’ll do alright,” said Koops. “I like the group and I think we have some chances of growing as a team.”
With only three team members, the Dolores cross-country team will be unable to score in the team standings until the Class 2A Regional. But they can still score individually.
Returning to the squad are sophomores Brennan Hite and Phillip Hufman, who gained valuable experience last year as freshmen. And head coach Nick Kohler believes that the pair have a good shot to advance to the state championships in their second season.
“If they can drop another minute they’ll have a good shot at going to state this year,” he said. “Both of them. It just depends on how hard they want to work and how everything falls into place.”
New to the program is freshman Alex Olson, who Kohler said gained distance experience last year in track, but is out for cross-country for the first time.
“He ran the mile during middle school track last year,” said Kohler. “And he likes running. He’s got a ways to go before he gets in [cross-country] shape, but I can tell he’s a decent runner.”
