Competing against a record league turnout, Animas and Durango high school teams came up with several top 10 finishes and other top-notch results in the season-opening mountain bike race last weekend at Snow Mountain Ranch in Granby.
The league broke a record with 52 high school teams and 586 riders racing Saturday and Sunday, coach Sarah Tescher reported to The Durango Herald.
After the season’s first competition, Animas High sits in fifth place in Division I and Durango High is second in Division II, just behind Vail.
Four different rider classes – freshmen, sophomores, junior varsity and varsity – took to the 5.2-mile course, with different classes doing various numbers of loops.
Katja Freeburn of DHS led all the way in winning the girls varsity race by about a minute over Salida rider Kelsay Lunberg. Cameron Sippy of AHS was fifth.
“(Katja and Cameron) are the youngest girls, as they are sophomores in their varsity field that is mostly juniors and seniors,” Tescher said. “But they rode like they owned the course.”
In the girls junior varsity race, Ellen Campbell was involved in a sprint finish, but dropped a chain just before the finish. JV riders Ava Hachmann and Lacey Anderson, both newcomers to high school racing, placed 10th and 11th, respectively.
In the freshman girls race, Maya Zarlingo of AHS was third in her debut.
In the four-lap, 20-mile varsity boys race, Bryce Gordon and Charlie Greenberg led the DHS squad’s push. Gordon went on to finish 12th, but Greenberg suffered mechanical problems and did not finish. Rotary exchange student Gergo Hajba was 14th.
Despite starting in the back row in the junior varsity race, Keiran Eagen managed to pass most of the riders in the field and ended up ninth. Teammates Quinn Haughey was 20th and Perrin Kileen 23rd. DHS riders Lucas Robbins (15th) and Ross Kotlar (68th) were among the race’s 95 competitors.
“(Coach Garrett Alexander) and I told (Keiran) to be patient and just focus on a clean start and look up the trail for good spots to pass,” Tescher said.
AHS and DHS freshmen and sophomores also had some impressive finishes.
“(The) sophomores impressed me a lot,” Alexander said. “It’s amazing to see how much they have developed over the last year.”
In the 107-sophomore field, George McQuinn of AHS sprinted to a fourth-place finish, teammate Dylan Williamson was fifth, Andrew Middleton 20th, Austin Munroe 21st, Coleman Bader 38th, T.J. Rifkin 50th and Geoffery Steiner 58th.
For DHS, Jimmy Pope was fourth and Tye Sandavol 11th.
Tescher is team director for the Animas and Durango teams, and is also program manager of Durango DEVO, which develops young cyclists’ skills.
“As always, the two high school teams demonstrated smart, solid racing,” Tescher said. “Garrett and I both found ourselves with our mouths dropped in awe of our teams’ strength as well as team camaraderie.”
johnp@durangoherald.com
