Everything about the Durango High School cross country team screams “togetherness.”
The Demons camp before meets together, run as a pack together and – more often than not – win together.
DHS qualified both its boys and girls teams for the CHSAA Class 4A Cross Country State Championships on Saturday by finishing first and second in the Class 4A Region 6 meet in Delta on Oct. 18, respectively.
Runners wanted to camp so they could bring the entire team rather than just the qualifiers and stay together, but they’ll stay at a hotel because of lower temperatures than the last time the Demons competed in Colorado Springs.
The gesture isn’t lost on DHS head coach David McMillan.
“I think it all feeds into this espirit de corps that we’ve developed, this tightness,” McMillan said. “When you wake up snuggling next to each other on a hard surface you’re going to get up and you’re prepared to die for the kid next to you. That’s part of what has happened this season.”
The Demons practice a “pack running” philosophy that McMillan preaches, which has led the Demons’ girls team to a No. 10 ranking in the chsaanow.com 4A poll and a No. 8 ranking on the boys side.
In that pack-running mentality, the sixth-place runner’s finish is just as important as the first-place runner.
It creates a sense of shared purpose during races for the team.
“I feel like we all run better when we run together,” said Gerald Crawford, son of Rich and Jackie Crawford. “It works in every way possible.”
Not having any individual pacesetters has helped the Demons as well, creating a healthy competition within both the boys and girls rosters.
“It pushes you to perform your very best when you’re racing right with a pack of guys from your own team you know and train with,” said Gordon Gianniny, son of Cynthia Dott and Gary Gianniny. “During the race I know I can stay with them, and we all push each other a lot more than we would if there was one guy way out front.”
A good start is key to following the pack mentality. Otherwise, runners will get lost in the clump of runners and expend more energy attempting to work their way to the front.
DHS struggled with its starts at times this season but has been working on them lately – with the help of longtime DHS cross country and track and field head coach Ron Keller – and practice made perfect at regionals.
“We had a lot of work on our starts the past week before the region meet,” said Hannah Peterson, daughter of Chris and Jenifer Peterson. “We had the best starts of the season, in my opinion.”
DHS will need another great start if it wants to improve on last season’s showing at the state meet, as the course narrows from the start, not leaving much room for large-scale maneuvering.
Last year the Demons finished ninth as a boys team and 12th as a girls team, finishes they weren’t thrilled with given the traditional pressures and high expectations that come with running cross country for DHS.
“I know they went there last year with high expectations, and they were a little dampened, I don’t think they achieved what they wanted to,” McMillan said. “I think they’ll take that with them, that burning desire to improve on last year’s team.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
