One of the season’s most exciting cross-country races has arrived. With teams already looking ahead to this year’s regional race in Durango, the Southwest Sunset XC Classic will be bigger than ever.
Durango and Bayfield are set to co-host the event at Hillcrest Golf Club for the third consecutive year. The event is highlighted by high school varsity races under the stars, with girls set to run at 8:30 p.m. and boys scheduled to start at 9 p.m. Friday.
“It’s a big meet and it’s growing, and that’s great,” said DHS junior Aidan Fitzgerald. “The more competition, the better. We’re ready and super prepared and excited for the opportunity to race these teams and be more prepared for the regional meet.”
Nineteen high schools will attend the meet Friday, with another seven middle schools expected to join the action. Durango is scheduled to host its regionals Oct. 19 at Hillcrest, so teams such as Montrose, Pueblo West and Widefield are attending to get an early look at the course.
According to Durango senior Abby Scott, an early look at regional teams will be more important for the second-ranked DHS boys team than the top-ranked girls.
“From a regional standpoint, our girls team has awesome runners, but we are one of the weaker regions,” she said. “From the boys perspective, it’s more important because their region is stronger. Montrose has some talented runners. The girls side, we traditionally sweep it. We’re treating Friday more as an opportunity to say thank you to our community and less of an opportunity to go hammer to metal.”
The Southwest Sunset XC Classic is truly a community event. Racing will begin at 7 p.m. Friday with the middle school girls race and 7:30 p.m. for middle school boys. A community 5-kilometer run also is scheduled for 8 p.m. DHS head coach David McMillan is excited to see middle school runners compete closer to twilight. With a spectator-friendly course under temporary light fixtures, fans also will have a chance to see two of the best teams in the state in the Durango boys and girls teams.
Also adding to the atmosphere is the combination of the junior varsity and varsity races, making the fields more than 150 runners deep instead of 70 to 80 each. That will give the DHS teams practice running through a larger field of runners throughout the race.
The girls won last week’s Joe Vigil Invitational in Alamosa with an impressive display, led by sophomore Madeline Burns’ second-place time of 19:05.35. Burns led the race until the final kilometer. Burns won’t compete this week while she rests a sore ankle, but runners such as Scott, Kiara Hamlin, Anna Smagacz, Ruth Holcomb, Brenna Wolf, Maddy Persing and Bekah Moenning have more than enough talent to deliver a win for the Demons.
“I came onto a girls team when I was a freshman where the coaches were telling us only 20 teams make state, and if we got 20th, they were still proud of us,” Scott said. “Our team got 21st, and it turned out actually 22 teams were at state.
“Now, I’ve seen a full span of what a girls team can look like. I’ve seen what it looks like on a team that wants to run for each other and has a lot of talent. For me, seeing kids like Madeline come on and see the environment change is one of the coolest things I’ve ever been part of.”
The boys team drew inspiration from the girls last week. After watching the Demons run to first place, the boys took second behind strong efforts from Fitzgerald, Noah Bodewes, Logan Moore, Marcus Flint, Paul Knight and Wiley Corra.
“You get hyped up and ready to run really fast,” Bodewes said of watching the girls team.
“I saw Madeline come in leading for quite a long distance. We raced after them, and I tried to do the same thing. I went really hard. Unfortunately, I took that too much to heart last week and went out leading for a bit but finished seventh. But it’s fun to be part of that and cheering for the girls.”
Bodewes has never run the night race before, as he moved from Wisconsin to Durango and joined the team this season. He has no idea what to expect but is learning as much from his teammates as he can before the event.
“I know it will be hard to see and you’ll probably only be able to see the people in front of you,” the junior said. “It will be interesting for pacing, and I’m excited to see how this goes and how it works.”
Fitzgerald has run the race before. As much as running the race itself, he looks forward to seeing the younger racers hit the course.
“It’s a super-fun experience to see the middle-schoolers run before you,” he said. “To see the youth coming up through the programs, it makes it a really fun meet. It’s great for spectating and you can see a lot of running. Under the lights, it doesn’t get much better.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
