Race Review

It was exciting to race for the first time this season and our results were excellent! 

Press

Cody Jones wrote a great article in the Summit Daily: 

Summit’s Ella Hagen sets new course record at Husky Invite, teams place 3rd and 5th overall

Boys 

The boys were seeded sixth in the virtual meet (see below) using last year's times. That means no freshmen were included in the virtual meet, or any transfers. Despite this being a relatively small meet of 12 teams, it included two of our biggest regional rivals - Battle Mountain and Eagle Valley. We definitely didn't run full strength, resting Zach to safeguard his hip, Carter and Donovan so they could be fresh for an important mountain bike race that afternoon, and telling Cain to "cruise" the race due to his recent recovery from HAPE. Despite that, and Landon experiencing in a rude way that XC can be a contact sport, the boys did quite well, exceeding the seed by edging Mead for 5th place. 

I figure we spotted the field at least 70 points, which would have put us ahead of Prospect Ridge Academy and close to Monarch and Eagle Valley. Had Zach Dykstra attended SHS, after training with us and attending our running camp, instead of Monarch, we certainly would have been close to them, even with hiding our cards. It should be remembered, however, that Eagle Valley didn't run Jake Drever, one of the top runners in the State. Those that forecast Eagle Valley as a top five team in the State seem to have been on to something.

Most Improved goes to Liam Dalzell, who ran a whopping 2:16 faster than last year! Dom had an extremely impressive race, running a huge 53 seconds faster than last year for 3rd place (behind Will Brunner and Porter Middaugh from Battle Mountain, who also figure to occupy top positions on the podium at State.) His 17:04 was just 17 seconds off the previous course record, which Will broke.

Josh ran the same time as last year, but finished 3 spots higher at 6th. Landon had a rough race after the aforementioned contact and resulting dirt sampling, but he will bounce back strongly for the Stampede Saturday. 

Cain cruised to a solid 21:31 and 44th place. Judging by the amount of smiling and fist pumping observed, figure he easily had another minute in him. Gavin joined Cain in running his first high school XC meet and first XC meet at the 5k distance. He ran a solid 23:17 on what may be the second toughest/slowest course in the State - after the Copper Mountain Cup.

Memphis and Jens had to run JV due to transfer rules and both did great. In fact, Memphis would have been 5th on the team had he been allowed to race Varsity.

Looking forward to the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede we can be excited about running at full strength and having a much more representative battle with Battle Mountain and Eagle Valley. It will be an excellent preview of our Regional Championship. Qualifying for State won't be easy in our region, which figures to have four of the top eight teams in the State with Central Grand Junction also being highly ranked.

Girls

The girls were seeded sixth and beat that in a big way, finishing third and a strong third at that, not far behind the huge team from 5A Monarch. Most improved goes to Avery who ran a steller 1:13 faster than last year. Close was Ella's big 1:01 knocked off last year's winning time, surpassing the course record set by Mia Prok of Niwot in 2019 by 21 seconds!

Freshman Lauren made a huge contribution to the teams third place finish and the "Summit Girls!!" text I received from a fellow coach Saturday night. Her 21:31 ranks her the second fastest Summit girl ever at Battle Mountain. We discussed a race plan on the bus on the way to the race and Lauren executed perfectly, running behind the top Battle Mountain girls for the first half mile, to ensure she didn't start too fast with Freshman exuberance, and then passing all but two of them for a fourth place finish.

Adaline placed third for the team and just 13 seconds slower than last year, despite training time lost to a still tender ankle sprain. Fast closing Avery finished just two seconds back. Cece improved an impressive 13 seconds to nail down Summit's final scoring position. 

Paige returned from a one season exchange student absence in a solid sixth place. Claire and Chloe were our only representatives in the JV race. Freshman Claire, just a few practices after being recruited to the team ran an impressive 26:49. Judging by her finish, there was a lot left in the tank and this is just a taste of things to come. Brand new to SHS and racing at 8000 feet, Claire ran a very good 32:54.

This was an excellent showing by the girls and should give them great confidence that qualifying for State is achievable. We look forward to Logan, Darby, Maisy and Summer racing at Cheyenne Mountain and expanding the team depth.

How much have the girls improved? A double-wide lot! The average time of our scoring five this year was 22:20, just one second from a full minute improvement over last year's 23:19. If our scoring five at Regionals average a one minute improvement - each! - over last year, you can imagine how much that will improve our score.

Another way to measure the strength of the girls performance is to recognize that four of the fastest ten SHS times ever at Battle Mountain were run this year! See the full top times lists below.

Link to MileSplit results

Photos

A few photos are in the carousel below. See a bunch more, including fantastic photos taken by Paul Steinweg, here!

Top SHS times at Battle Mountain

HUSKY CROSS COUNTRY INVITATIONAL

WHEN:  Saturday, August 27th, 2022, 10 am start

WHERE:  Minturn Nordic Center, 1 Academy Loop, Minturn, CO 81645

Hosted by Battle Mountain High School at the Minturn Nordic Center. This location provides a beautiful setting for a challenging course of grass, dirt, and hills. 

TRANSPORTATION: As of now, we will have a bus to the meet. The bus will depart from the SHS Student Entrance at 8:00. Be there NLT 7:50. Estimated return time to SHS is 2:00 p.m.

RACE TIMES:

9:15 Open

10:00 Boys Varsity

10:30 Girls Varsity

11:10 Boys JV

11:50 Girls JV

12:30 Awards

1:00 Middle School

SCORING:

Varsity - Run 7, Score 5

JV - Run unlimited, Score 5

2021 Battle Mountain results. 

2021 Battle Mountain results on MileSplit.

Course Map

2022 Race virtual meet

These are last year's times - and the racers listed aren't necessarily racing. They were just on their team's rosters last year. They may not be this year. It DOESN'T include freshmen or transfers. (Zach Dykstra is racing varsity for Monarch.)

While Cheyenne Mountain is on the list of registered teams, they aren't racing according to their coach because a bus isn't available. I removed them from the below virtual meet.

We are ranked 6th (boys) and 5th (girls). We will do much better than that. Again that is based on last year's top times, and doesn't include new runners.

Race entries

Top entries with seed times (from last year) only. I.e., no Freshmen.