It was a long road trip for BHS cross country for tonight's event: the 2014 Desert Twilight Cross Country Festival in Casa Grande, Ariz., south of Phoenix.
Bayfield should get quite a tune-up for Oct. 17 regoinals at this weekend's meet.
With fewer than 1,800 students within its halls, BHS will be entered in the festival's small-school division. Its girls' varsity race is scheduled to start at 7:15 p.m., and its boys' main is slated for 7:40, close to four hours after all the excitement begins at the Grande Sports Complex.
Prepping for the great gathering, Bayfield competed at last Saturday's Anna Banana Memorial Invitational, hosted by Fruita Monument at Connected Lakes State Park southwest of the town of Fruita.
Senior Trevor Gabbard paced the Wolverine boys as expected with his 16th-place 17:15.8.
The rest of the squad also finished familiar to previous outings; Alex Knight was next in, clocking 17:57.8 and taking 38th, Sloan Mazur's 19:20.2 was 67th, and the Justis Herrera-Bryan Gram duo crossed the line 79th and 81st (19:56.1 and 20:22, respectively) for an adjusted total of 247 points. Bayfield's Joey Sandrey (21:21.3) was 92nd.
That put BHS in 10th place when the dust settled, well behind the host Wildcats' winning 73. Leading the Lady Wolverines was Rachel Cooper, who finished 29th in 21:54.1, just under 12 seconds from cracking the top 25. Lexa Fleming was next in 50th (23:22.6), Amber Johnson took 58th (24:11.9) and Brittany Birk placed 75th (28:05).
This weekend will be the largest meet the Wolverines attend all year. All told, the Desert Twilight will be comprised of 19 different races.
