EL PASO COUNTY – Protruding through low-hanging clouds, indicators of the winter storm system predicted to slam much of Colorado that very day, a rainbow effectively let the girls competing in the 2023 CHSAA Class 2A State Cross-Country Championships’ opening 9 a.m. race that though it’d be cold, the weather would hold.
Those girls were Class 2A’s best, and that lot included surprising Dolores.
And despite not running in Colorado Springs on the level of, say, Leadville-based Lake County – which finished second as a team after a dominant first-place effort at the previous Friday’s Region IV Championships held at Boggy Draw, north of Dolores – the Lady Bears concluded their season Saturday strides and strides ahead of no fewer than six other squads.
All told, DHS amassed an adjusted 254 points in the race’s score-4 system, and placed 14th. Trailing Dolores were Oak Creek Soroco (266), Nederland (280), Rocky Ford (301), Pueblo West Swallows Charter Academy (319), Colorado Springs Thomas MacLaren School (342) and Rye (362).
Fort Collins Heritage Christian Academy, on the other hand, capped the crown with a race-low 37 points. LCHS was close behind with 47, and Springs-based Banning Lewis Preparatory Academy (69) ranked third out of the 20 crews fortunate to have prolonged their season long enough to compete upon the Norris-Penrose Event Center course.
Junior Everlee Heaton paced DHS with a 62nd -place time of 22 minutes, 41.20 seconds – or 4:22.10 behind individual winner Nadhia Campos, a junior at Springs-based The Vanguard School. Next to finish for the Lady Bears were juniors Elia Lowe (74th) and Keira LaRose (84th), who clocked 23:07.60 and 23:44.60, respectively. Finalizing DHS’ scoring quartet, junior Maya Lowe (24:26.50) came in 96th, and classmate Coralea Wright (28:47.00) finished 119th.
Placing top-five after Campos were HCA sophomore Mikaela Kendall (19:22.60), BLPA junior Alexia Gonzales (19:44.40), Telluride sophomore Austin Cook (19:52.80) and Grand Junction Caprock Academy senior Taylor Skinner (20:09.30).
In the Class 2A boys’ race, which commenced 80 minutes after the girls’ and with the Fahrenheit still stuck in the high 30s/low 40s despite persistent sunshine, sophomore Aaron Nielson–Dolores’ lone qualifier – clocked 19 minutes, 7.30 seconds and placed 91st out of 136 finishers.
Colorado Springs Christian School junior Andrew Bel finished first in 16:16.60; Golden View Classical Academy earned the team title with a low score-4 count of 42 points, less than half of runner-up BLPA’s 85.
