Upon entering Wolverine Country Stadium for tomorrow's Pine River Invitational, the buzz about Bayfield girls' track and field will be something that hasn't been felt in a while.
Because something akin to last weekend's performance hadn't been seen in quite a while.
Jumping (and running, and vaulting) at the chance to perform at the two-day John Tate Challenge Cup in Pueblo, the squad's leading ladies led all teams inside Dutch Clark Stadium, sporting a Division II-winning total of 108.5 points.
3A Gunnison was second with 81.5 and 3A Colorado Springs Sierra edged 2A Calhan 66-63 for third. By comparison, 4A Durango won the meet's Division I championship with 135 points, and 5A Colorado Springs Coronado was second with 113.
Normally it could be easily said that Jordan Lanning led the way as the sophomore took first in the 100-meter hurdles, her 16.19 beating 2A Ordway Crowley County senior Tessa Vaughan's 16.33, and won the long jump with her 16'8" topping teammate Tymbree Florian's second-place 15'3.75".
She also teamed with Florian, senior Maddi Foutz and senior Claire Belmear to help Bayfield place third in the 4x100-meter relay with a 53.36-second effort.
Foutz won the Cup's D-II pole vault competition with a best of eight feet even, and helped the 4x4 (also including Belmear, senior Bridget Goddard and senior Isis Gonzales) win with a 4:28.70 clocking - beating 2A Hoehne to the finish line by over two ticks.
The same quartet took second in the sprint medley relay, finishing only eight-tenths of a second behind 3A Colorado Springs St. Mary's with a 1:59.69, and Goddard took second in the 800-meter run. Her 2:33.23 trailed only HHS junior Shaelyn Walton's 2:29.30.
Still, senior Amber Johnson's record-breaking work may have had the greatest impact for Bayfield. After breaking a two-year old meet record by 0.08 with her 48.72 in the 300m hurdles' preliminary phases, she scorched the track and re-broke her newfound mark with a first-place 47.63 in the specialty's final. 2A Rye senior Laura Ambler, who'd ran second in the heats with a 50.31, finished an even more distant second in the final with a 50.38.
Johnson's 26.60 in the 200-meter dash not only set a new school record, bettering Patty Powers' 27.05 achieved in 2009, but earned second place, behind only Calhan junior Brittany Fuchs' 26.28, in the Steel City.
Her 13.38 in the 100-meter final, though faster than her second-place 13.43 in the prelims, was good enough for third, and she finished likewise in the 100m hurdles with a 16.87 (her 16.66 in the qualifying heats ranked second, ahead of Lanning's 16.78, but behind Vaughan's 16.57).
JOHN TATE CHALLENGE CUP, GIRLS' DIVISION II STANDINGS: 1.BAYFIELD 108.5, 2.Gunnison 81.5, 3.Colorado Springs Sierra 66, 4.Calhan 63, 5.Manitou Springs 57, 6.Colorado Springs St. Mary's 52, 7.Hoehne 45, 8.Colorado Springs Vanguard 39.5, 9.Ordway Crowley County 39, 10.Rye 38, 11.Simla 30, 12.Swallows Charter Academy 21, 13.Fowler 20.5, 14.Rocky Ford 17, 15.Florence 13, 16.Swink 12, 17.La Junta 9, 18.Antonito 7, T-19.Trinidad & Weston Primero 2, 21.Pueblo Central 1.
JOHN TATE CHALLENGE CUP, GIRLS' DIVISION I STANDINGS (13 teams): 1.Durango 135, 2.Colorado Springs Coronado 113, 3.Widefield 103, 4.Canon City 89, 5.Colorado Springs Harrison 72.. 13.Colorado Springs Doherty 4.
