2023 battle Mountain recap

This was an excellent developmental race for us. The Battle Mountain race is the most technical (rough footing) race we will do all year and the slowest besides our own Summit Stinger. Add on the Friday afternoon start and the much higher temperatures than the normal Saturday morning start and that was the makings for a tough test. One we passed strongly! A little results analysis shows the average times were about 40 seconds slower than last year. Despite that, we had several runners improve upon last years times, some of them by a lot.

Last year our girls placed 3rd, 47 points behind Battle Mountain. This year 2nd, just 5 points behind Battle Mountain. That was without Lindsey and Ashley.

Ella won by nearly 90 seconds. It wasn't a course PR due to the heat, but a strong run nonetheless with a winning margin of victory identical to last year, when Lindsey Whitton of Battle Mountain was also 2nd. Avery and Lily had excellent races to place 6th and 7th. Avery's time was 1:05 faster than last year, despite the heat and she placed 15 positions higher! Lily was the fastest freshman in the race! Adaline raced to a strong 17th, 4 positions higher than last year. Cece started very strong and despite slowing a bit in the last mile from the heat, placed a strong 29th, closing out our scoring. That placed all of our top 5 in the top 30. When you can do that in a meet this size, the team will place well.

The JV girls also placed 2nd, again close behind Battle Mountain. This was by far the best our JV team has ever done and it is tremendously exciting, and important, to see the increased depth and improvement. Our top 3 girls went 3, 4, 5 led by Claire who also led the race for nearly the first mile. Claire also had the biggest improvement of the whole squad compared to last year - an even and huge 2:00! Claire, Darby and Milla (racing superbly in her first 5k and first high school race, she was the first JV freshman) were running together in a pack at times, which is excellent to see. They were followed by our three upperclassmen in their first every XC seasons, Josie in her first ever XC race and Lila and Cora in their first XC 5ks. All ran great on what is, it should be repeated, a very difficult course. Cora in fact had the biggest relative improvement to the Mountain Vista 2 Mile of all the girls. All of our JV girls finished in the top 30, well into the top half of the field.

The boys also placed 2nd, and this was arguably an even bigger improvement. Last year they placed 5th, 91 points behind Battle Mountain. This year, without Will, Lukas and John (3 of our top 7 from Mountain Vista) they were 46 points behind a very strong Eagle Valley - a team I peg to possibly place 3rd at State this year. For a bit more comparison, last year we finished 4 points ahead of Mead, this year 93. Last year we were 43 points behind Prospect Ridge Academy, this year 140 points ahead. 

Josh led the first mile of the race, in what perhaps was a bit ambitious start given the course difficulty and heat. He dropped back a bit the last mile but still finished a strong 6th, the same position as last year. Jay started in 3rd and finished there, a tremendous first 5k by a freshmen. He was 1:42 ahead of the next Freshman! Our solid Sophomores, placed a strong 12th and 15th, despite both being somewhat hindered by colds. Those were comparatively much stronger performances than at Mountain Vista. Carter didn't race at Battle Mountain last year, but Cain was 29 spots higher this year! Carter and Cain were the 2nd and 3rd sophomores. Owen had a tremendous race  - the 6th freshman - and finished out our scoring as our 5th place runner. Owen, Gavin and Jens ran as a pack for a good portion of the race, with Gavin finishing just behind Owen. Gavin was 1:35 faster than last year and Jens was 2:46 faster!

With three boys absent from the varsity race, Owen, Gavin and Jens all got to step up and they did great. That left just Max and Donovan in the JV race, so we didn't have enough to score. They both raced well, finishing in the top half.

I'm hoping these results will get both the boys and girls invites into the Liberty Bell Sweepstakes heats!

Press

2023/9/3, Vail Daily: Eagle Valley boys cross-country team wins Husky Invitational at Maloit Park

2023/9/3, Vail Daily: Defending state champion wins Battle Mountain Husky Invitational, but Huskies comes through for the team victory

2023/9/7, Summit Daily: Beating the heat: Summit cross-country team sees marked improvement from last year’s Battle Mountain Husky Invitational

SHS Times

HUSKY CROSS COUNTRY INVITATIONAL

WHEN:  Saturday, 1 September 2023

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: Since this meet is close, we encourage and anticipate most runners will travel to the meet with their parents. Please try to arrive at least 60 minutes before your heat, but preferably 90 minutes, so there is plenty of time to get settled, recon the course and WU.

RACE TIMES:

1:00 Open

2:00 Boys Varsity

2:30 Girls Varsity

3:10 Boys JV

3:50 Girls JV

4:30 Awards

5:00 Middle School

SCORING:

Varsity - Run 7, Score 5

JV - Run unlimited, Score 5

Top SHS times at Battle Mountain

Course Map

2022 race results & 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!

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.

2021 Battle Mountain results. 

2021 Battle Mountain results on MileSplit.