The Durango High School cross-country team got its season off to a fast start Friday at the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede, held at the Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs, after the boys finished in eighth, while the girls team took sixth.
Hosts Cheyenne Mountain took home the boys Class 4A team title with 57 points. Air Academy was second with 70 points and Battle Mountain was third with 94 points. Durango boys had 239 points, while Ponderosa was seventh with 223 points.
“Ladies did very well with a sixth-place finish without having three of our top runners. I was impressed by the Forrest sisters, and the guys side, Paul Knight had a good race,” said DHS head coach Ken Flint. “It’s just the starting point for us, and we’ll hope to run even faster with a fuller squad at Alamosa.”
Knight was the Demons’ highest finisher and took ninth with a time of 17 minutes, 7.8 seconds. Logan Moore finished 18th in 17:26.0. Matthew Mettler of Air Academy won the race in 16:15.40.
In the girls race, Air Academy won the meet with 67 points, Battle Mountain was second with 89 and Thompson Valley was third with 114 points. DHS just missed out on a top-five finish with 127 points.
Tea Forrest was the highest finisher for the Demons, finishing in 20:38.3, which was 13th overall. Tea’s younger sister, Ashley, was the second-highest finisher for Durango in 21:12.4 and took 20th. Angela McManus was third for the Demons in 21:54.2 and finished in 32nd. Grace Johnson of Battle Mountain won the race in 18:52.3.
The Demons will compete at the Joe Vigil Open Sept. 7 in Alamosa.
Elco Garcia got the Bayfield High School boys cross-country team off to a flying start in the boys Class 3A race, after he finished fourth with a time of 17:36.90. Zeb Shields was the Wolverines’ second-highest finisher and ran the 5-kilometer race in 18:19.10, while Jonas Nanaeto had a top-20 finish and crossed the line in 18:38.50 for 20th.
The Wolverines finished in fifth place as a team with 156 points. University High won the 3A race with 44 points, while Alamosa was second with 111 points.
“All of our kids did really, really well today,” said Bayfield coach Joshua Walton. “I was pretty optimistic with how the boys would do because they put in the miles over the summer, and they had lots of potential, but I wasn’t sure how much. They all did well and same with the girls. It was a really good start for us.”
The Bayfield girls team had four runners who competed but did not register a team score. Paige Porter took 53rd and finished in 27:24.60.
The Wolverines will travel to Leadville next Saturday for the Lake County Cross-Country Invitational.
bploen@durangoherald.com
