Hoping to stamp their tickets to Colorado Springs for the Colorado State High School Cross Country Championships, runners from Mancos High School, Dolores High School and Montezuma-Cortez High School gave it their all during regional competitions last week.
Among the biggest surprises at last week’s competitions was the performance put forth by the Mancos girls team, which placed 5th overall at the Class 2A Region 4 Championship in Delta and qualified for state.
Leading the way for the Lady Jays, as she did throughout the regular season, was sophomore Grace Manning, who finished 5th overall (20:38.55) against tough competition, thereby guaranteeing herself a spot at state for the second consecutive year.
Also turning in inspired performances for Mancos were Hakayla Snow and Kaysi Thomas, who finished 28th (23:15.75) and 29th (23:16.86) respectively. Aspen Bumgarner placed 33rd (23:24.67), Kylie Guiles finished 45th (24:44.82) and Zoey Steele crossed the line in 46th (24:54.24).
Thanks to their runners’ performances, the Lady Jays placed 5th in the team standings and qualified for state. Soroco High School finished 1st in the Class 2A Region 4 Championship.
Following up their highly successful regular seasons with stellar performances at the Class 2A Region 4 Championship in Delta, Dolores seniors Philip Hufman and Brennan Hite qualified for Colorado’s state cross-country meet.
For Hufman, qualification came thanks to a 3rd-place finish and a career-best time of 16:49.37. Hite also cracked the top five in the meet’s talented field with a time of 17:18.69, which was good enough for 5th place.
Rounding out the Bears’ finishers at the regional meet was Josh Petrow, who gave everything that he had and finished 47th overall (20:08.00). The Bears finished 6th overall as a team and in doing so, missed out on team qualification by one spot.
Competing at the Class 2A Region 4 championships for the first time, Mancos freshman Edgar Hernandez accomplished his season-long goal of qualifying for state by finishing 15th overall (17:55.14).
Close behind Hernandez was John Lund, who placed 18th overall with a time of 18:20.60. James Ayers finished 32nd for the Bluejays (19:03.56), while Connor Schnert finished in 34th place (19:15.66).
Stephen Knezek placed 40th (19:42.49) and William Small crossed the line in 70th (30:44.19) for their blue-and-white clad team, which finished 8th overall in the team standings. Paonia High School finished 1st in the Class 2A Region 4 Championship.
Competing at the Class 3A Region 1 Championship in Aspen, members of Montezuma-Cortez High School’s boys and girls cross-country teams faced tough competition and failed to qualify for state.
Those closest to cracking the top 15 in the individual standings and thus qualifying were Davian Robinson, who finished 16th (18:23.90), and John Whyte, who placed 17th (18:30.60) in the boys standings.
John Hughes crossed the line in 82nd (21:41.60) and Wes Atcitty finished 88th (22:06.30) for the Panthers. Jadon Elliott rounded out the team’s finishers with a 100th-place finish (23:21.40) and the M-CHS boys team placed 10th in the meet’s 14-team field.
On the girls side, M-CHS was led by Ridley Dennison, who placed 44th (23:20.30), and Marina Bradley, who finished 51st (24:12.10). Ayanna Silas placed 66th (25:22.10), Siren Utrecht placed 67th (25:22.90), Trinity Meyers placed 73rd (25:54.30), Emalie Myers finished 74th (25:54.80) and Kalea Hunt crossed the line in 92nd place (29:07.40).
The M-CHS girls team finished 10th in the meet’s 12-team field. Pagosa Springs finished 1st overall in the girls team standings.
