Regionals at Cheyenne Mountain High School on May 11-12, 2001
It’s the morning of the regional track meet. Actually the pole vault was held yesterday at Dutch Clark. After one event the team scores for girls are Alamosa 18, County 6. For boys South 18, Alamosa 12.5, County 4.5. That’s a bigger hole than we would like to dig out of, especially if you consider that if Josh had opened at 9′ and made it and Ty had been an inch higher on his last vault, it could have been South 15, Alamosa 12, County 8.
On the first day some good things happened but our hopes for the boys winning the meet were gone. In the 4×800 relay the girls ran better than we hoped but we got fourth. Joette ran a huge PR 2:29 leg followed by a 2:34 by Janae, a 2:30 by Amy put us in the lead but Sarah’s even bigger 2:44 PR could not hold off the hard charging anchors from South, CaƱon City and Cheyenne Mountain left us about 3.5 seconds away from qualifying for state. Still it was a season best performance 8.17.
The boys had two uninspired legs, one good enough, and one sensational. Josh led off with a 2:09.1, Adam sliced through the field with an almost unbelievable 1:56.5, Mark held on with 2:08.8 and Chad cruised a 1:59.9 to bring us our first regional win in 8:14.2, 17 seconds ahead of second place.
In the 1600 Kyle was ninth with a good 5:01 win by Shawn Borton in 4:34 with Aaron Lopez third in 4:39. Brad led the first heat for three an a half laps before fading. He still had a season best of 5:10. Kaven ran 5:12. Joette was 10th or 11th with a 6:03 behind Jenna Bimbi’s 5:15. Tiffany had a 7:08.
In the 400 we went two three with a pair of PR’s. John Thomason’s 49:14 was also a school record. Adam Arellano’s 49:24 was 0.61 faster than the state placing time of last year. Amy placed fifth with a PR 62 and Janae sixty with a PR 63. Jeremy Behling won the long jump with 22’10”. We finished the day behind 40.5 to South’s 72.
The next morning started early with the boy’s 3200. It was a darn good race. Aaron Lopez was third in 10:09. Kyle was seventh in a PR 10:51, his first time below 11. Kaven ran 11:16 and brad 12:02. We won the 800 relay with a sensational come from behind 21.5 anchor by Adam. Jeremy was second in the 100 in 11.22. Meanwhile Chad was taking second in the high jump with 6’3.25″. When the 800 came Janae and Amy ran very impressive PR’s, 2:26.42 and 2:26.46, that weren’t quite good enough to qualify them for state. Chad, whose legs may have lost some spring in all that jumping, ran a very creditable 1:58.84 which left him third behind Mattingly of East’s 1:57.74 and Skloven-Gill of Cheyenne Mountain’s 1:58.48. Jeremy won the 300 hurdles in 39.62. John Thomason took second in the 200 in 22.21. Then we had the girl’s 3200. Tiffany ran a tired 15:20.
Then we came to the 4×400. The girls were 6th in a season best 4:21.52. The good news is the girls should all be back. The same team that took fourth in the 4×800 relay is made up of three freshmen and a sophomore.
No matter how disappointing a meet is, a win in the 4×400 wipes away a lot of hurt. In this one Jon-Todd Baker led off with a 54.0, Chad, who was both exhausted and dispirited after his open 800, rallied to run a creditable 51.5 that put us in striking position. John ran a 49.2 and Adam floated a 48.5 to secure the victory in a school record 3:23.18, more than 3 seconds ahead of South.
South won the meet 163 to 109.5, but we won the mile relay. We’ll try again next week at state.