The Durango cross country team looks primed to compete with the best at regionals and state after a great showing at the Bloomfield Invitational.
The Demons finished first in the boys and girls team standings. Luke Swenk won the boys race, while Lacey Ruggiero won the girls race.
“The key for us was it was a nice kind of a hilly course,” Durango coach Ron Keller said. “It kind of allowed us to run that course, and it’s got a lot of the state meet in it.”
Ruggiero impressed again, this time finishing first out of 18 girls with a time of 20 minutes and 40 seconds in the varsity girls 5000-meter race. Sophomore Ayla Williams had one of her best races of the season, finishing second with a time of 21:46.
Swenk returned to the action after missing some time with an illness, winning his first race of the season with a time of 17:30. Senior Charlie Dillman finished second out of 27 runners behind Swenk with a time of 17:40.
“Just looking back at the last four weeks now, he's really surged and closed the gap on Charlie a little bit,” Keller said of Swenk. “Right now, he's running really well and has had some really good workouts. So he started off kind of slow in the early part of the year and didn't have a lot of training in the summer. And as the season went on, he got better than some sickness slowed him down early. Then he climbed up the ladder pretty rapidly. We're looking forward to watching him run.”
The Durango cross country team will travel to Pueblo to compete in regionals on Thursday.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
