Spring Season — But No Meets, Yet
Spring has been here for just over a week now, but County High has yet to participate in a varsity track meet. On consecutive Saturdays, March 17 Fountain, and March 24 Liberty, meets were canceled in the Springs area due to weather. The kids are ready, we think. We’ve got a couple of exceptional 400 meter runners, a very good long jumper/hurdler/sprinter, a good 800 runner, a sophomore who can run well from the 100 to the 1600 on the men’s team. We have the best bunch of freshman girls we’ve had in years. Naturally we want to see them run. As of this writing we’re hoping we’ll get a meet in in Alamosa this coming Saturday, March 31.
Since we haven’t done anything in track yet, let me speculate about the next cross country season. We didn’t have any senior or junior girls. Sophomore Crystal Berndt ran a PR 20:25 at the Junior Olympic Region X cross country meet in Reno in November. Freshman Jessica Lowe got into the 23’s during the season. Freshman Tiffany Reno into the 24’s. If we seem a little short, let me tell you about Freshman Joette Ucar who spent the summer in Wyoming and when she got to County on the first day of school thought it was too late to go out for cross country. Joette will probably break 6:10 for the 1600 the first real chance she gets. Or how about Desirae Dallaguardia, the eighth grader, who was the overall women’s 5 K winner at the Spring Runoff. If some dummy hadn’t made the course a quarter mile long, Desirae’s time would have been about 23:05. And that’s on no running, just middle school basketball. Desirae will be a Rye freshman in the fall. Or eighth grader Jamie Barnes who was the SRO 5K champ in ’99. She’ll be a County freshman in the fall. Am I drooling?
Kyle Reno is planning to run at Adams State in the fall. Kyle seems to be running injury free. With the blind luck of finding a fast partner on the morning of the race, Kyle won the Valentines Twosome with Trish Ferguson. He’s one the County coaches are eager to see when we finally get a meet.
Plenty of County Alumni have run well lately. John Montoya (’75) from Raton was 9th overall in the SRO 10K in 40:52. John was beaten out of an age division award by County graduate Marty Garcia (’78) who was too busy learning the landscape business in high school to run, but is one of Pueblo’s better runners now. Marty is also the sponsor for the upcoming Cinco De Mayo race.John’s high school teammate Gerald Ure (’75) ran 25:25 in he 5K. Mark Koch (’77) was 7th overall, 2nd in division in the 10 mile of the SRO with a 1:04:09. And Steve Cathcart (’83) was second overall in the 10 K with 33:42. Kristi Koschke (’00) a frosh at CSU won her age division in the 10 K in 53::07. I didn’t coach him but Ron Betz (’66) was the County record holder in the mile before John Montoya came along. Ron was 7th overall, first in his division of the 5 K in 21:30.
Several other County graduates ran the SRO Including Greg Gauna (’89 or ’88) 30:27, one place ahead of Buffie Desalvo (’90) 30:29. Buffie didn’t run for us but she’s running now to compose herself after teaching eighth graders in the Fountain-Fort Carson district. Kari Linkowski (’83 or ’84) was a good long jumper for us but wouldn’t touch the distances. She apparently ran with her nine year old son David who ran 32:28. Paul Koch (’86) ran the 5K with his niece Sarah. Jeff Howes (’84) played football at the University of New Mexico, but has since trimmed down enough to run 1:16:19 for the 10 mile. I’m pretty sure Rick Reyes (about ³71) went to County High. His daughter was certainly an outstanding 400 meter runner for us. Rick ran 54:57 for the 10 K. I probably missed some but Debbie Andrews 37:00 5 K, and Stacie Taravella 1:27:59 10 mile sound familiar.
One final thing. Aaron Berndt has organized a 1600 meters for sixth graders only at the lunch break of the Hornet Invitational April 7 at County High. These kids coach themselves. If you want to see some good track on dirt and support some kids with initiative, come on out.