(Webmaster note: From the Rye HS perspective as Jeff is the Rye HS X-Country coach.)
The City Cross Country Championships held on Tuesday October 11 was a reward for the hard work the team had been doing all season. The boys team won easily, 43 to second place Pueblo Countys 88 and beat all the other six high schools in the County as well. The girls team, with a breakthrough run by Hillary Crawford, was fifth.
There was a middle school race before the high schools and Craver runners did well. Kipp Castanha flew away from his closest competitor in the last 100 yards or so to win the two mile race overall with a time of 13:55. Cassie Berndt was 15:51 and Kelci Steel 20:28.
The boys ran first. Our strategy was to try to run strongly in the second half of the race. In spite of that Logan Gogarty went to the lead early and maintained the lead for more than a mile when he was passed by two East runners. He repassed one with half a mile to go and finished second with a time of 16:59 for three miles. Brandon and Stephen Hruby followed the script more closely and then passed a group of runners. Stephen finished a little stronger to get fifth in 17:30 while Brandon was seventh in 17:40. All three earned the honor of being on the all City team and got medals. Aaron Berndt was 11th in 17:59 and Ethan Barbiere was 18th in 18:28 to round out the scoring. Cory Rose was 24th in 18:59, Joe Valdez 46th in 20:19, and Sampson 59th in 23:49.
The girls race was absolutely dominated by Centennial, but the Rye girls all had season best performances. Hillary and Samantha Davenport ran together most of the way but Samantha was hampered with sore calves and Hillary pulled away at the end to finish 12th in 21:40. Samantha was 17th in 21:59. Rachel Yoder was 28th in 24:10, Darsey Swartwood 41st in 25:55. and Natalie Sotelo 45th in 26:18.
The Region #3 state qualifying meet will be held Friday October 22 in Rocky Ford. The defending state champions, The Classical Academy, are probably better this year than last in both boys and girls. Rocky Ford should be a strong favorite to be second, but the Rye boys will see what they can do about that. The Rye girls are likely to run well, but because so many teams in our region do not have full teams will have to place fourth to be sure of qualifying as a team.