by Renée Haip
On Thursday, October 20, 42 high schools (2A, 3A, 4A) gathered in Lyons to contest both individual and team spots for the state cross-country meet. From the start, there really wasn’t any question about Lyons advancing both a girls’ and boys’ team to the state championship, giving them the luxury of running intelligently in order to save as much as possible for state.
The Lyons’ girls went into the race favored to place second behind number one ranked powerhouse, Nederland. In the girls’ 2A race, the regions’ top-ranking seniors, Kelly Robinson of Nederland and Birdie Hutton of Shining Mountain Waldorf, raced for the championship title with Robinson coming out the clear winner and setting a new course record of 18:21. For the Lions, sophomore Miriam Roberts ran a thoughtful race well below her potential, to take 4th place with 20:45. Roberts’ teammates followed suit, with juniors Olivia Raspotnik placing 9th (21:37) and Kelsey Miner closing out the scoring and placing 15th (22:40). The freshmen girls did not disappoint with Jenna Anderson coming in just behind Miner for 16th (22:43) and Anna Sundrud placing 19th with 22:58. A trying season for junior Hazel Myers, she finished 26th with 24:02 followed closely behind by freshman Faith Myers (24:04) for 27th, smashing her personal record (PR) by 2:34. Having run 23:40 at Friday’s JV championship, junior Maia Lang joins the top five girls as the state alternate.
The Lyons’ boys were the hands down favorites to win the regional championship. Despite the majority running conservatively, it was a sheer show of domination by the Lions, who placed all seven runners in the top 12 places. For seniors Sean Flynn of Lyons and Jake Rothman of Alexander Dawson, the race morphed into a fierce battle for the title with 1K to go. Providing the most thrilling finish of the day, Flynn out-kicked Rothman to take the title by a mere second and win his first-ever meet. Flynn finished in 17:22, a new PR by 34 seconds. Lyons number one boy all season, sophomore Marcel Such, stayed out of the battle up front and ran fast enough to secure third place with a time of 17:47. He was followed by junior Sam Crowley who closed out the scoring by running 18:20 (PR by 4 sec.) for 5th place, while senior Reed Test finished 8th in 18:31, and junior Ryan Boucher finished 9th with a season best of 18:42. Gaining a great deal of strength and speed recently, freshmen Brian Flynn and Matt Dillon battled for the alternate state position with Flynn earning the spot in 18:58 (PR by 12 sec.) for 10th place. Dillon finished 12th in 19:14.
In the “run seven, score three” format, the Lyons’ girls’ team scored 28 points behind Nederland’s 10 points (as in golf, the lower the score the better) for second place. The Lady Lions go to state as a team for a second consecutive year. With a score of 9 to runner-up Alexander Dawson’s 24, the boys’ team won the Colorado 2A Region 1 title for the second year in a row, and continue a (now) 15-year streak of taking a boys’ team to state.
This Saturday, October 29, Lyons Cross Country will travel to the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds in Aurora for the Colorado State Cross Country Championships. The girls run at 9:30, and the boys will compete at 11:30.
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