By almost all measures, the Denver East High School Angels had a successful afternoon of racing at the Colorado 5A Regional Championship over the Northwest Open Space Park course in Northglenn this past Friday.
On what was another unseasonably warm day, the Girls Championship race was the first of the afternoon. Despite having beat all the teams in the field earlier in the season, based on seasonal best times the Angels were predicted to finish third behind the teams from Boulder High School and Fairview High School. As expected, junior Rosie Mucharsky established herself at the front of the pack early. About midway through the race, Mucharsky urged her Boulder competitor and pre-race co-favorite to pick up the pace with her. With 1000m left to race, the two had established a substantial lead on the rest of the field before Mucharsky pulled away over the last 600m to easily win in a time of 18:18. Senior Grace Todd put herself inside the top-10 from early in the race and a strong finish propelled her to 8th place in 19:24. The rest of the East Angel pack hung further back in the field in the early part of the race with the quartet of sophomores Julieta Ochoa and Scout Chomas and ninth-graders Corrine Kennedy and Avery Johnson barely in the top-40 as they approached the mile mark. There may have been a few palpitations among the coaching staff during that first half of the race, as quick calculations of the team scores indicated the Angels might have been as far back as 5th place as a team. But by midway, it was apparent the Angel runners knew what they were doing. The pack steadily made its way up through the field; with 1000m to race, all of East’s scorers had moved inside the top-25, and it was just a question of whether East would place 2nd or 3rd – with any team in the top-4 moving on to the State Meet. Ochoa and Kennedy moved all the way up to 16th and 17th place in 20:02 and 20:04 respectively; Johnson finished 22nd in 20:26 and Chomas 26th in 20:38. Senior Sophia Shiroff was just another 20 seconds back in 33rd place, closely followed by ninth-grader Lola Carhart who had a strong finish to her season, finishing in 21:01 for 34th ; junior Lila Cypers took 45th in 21:27. The girls from Boulder won the meet with 35 points. East totaled 64, Fairview 84, and Broomfield High School grabbed the final qualifying spot for the State Meet with 113 points.
The Girls Team, having accomplished its primary mission of qualifying for the State Meet, got to celebrate as the East Boys raced next. The front of the Boys race unfolded much like the Girls; a large early pack thinned down to four runners by 2-miles and then just the two pre-race favorites, East junior Jonas Scudamore and Fairview High School’s top runner, with 1000m left to race. Scudamore had the better finishing kick of that pair over the last 300m, winning by 2 seconds with a time of 15:49, securing his third trip to the Colorado State Meet. Meanwhile, most of East’s attention was focused on senior Connor Beardsley who battled pole to post to be one of the top-15 individuals in the race and punch his ticket to the State Meet; it looked like it would be close with just 1000m left to race, but Beardsley closed superbly to grab 12th place and comfortably move on to his second State Meet. Junior Ben Brown finished 42nd in 18:04, sophomore Kyle Kojima 47th in 18:16 (a personal best time), and ninth-grader Emery Wagner 48th in 18:23, to close out the Angels scoring five. Junior Beckett Nelson-Gardner race to a 61st place finish in 19:04, sophomore Abraham Morginsky 65th in 19:10, and seniors Finn Egan and Linus Cole closed out their high school cross country careers with 72nd and 89th place finishes in 19:27 and 21:06 respectively. While falling short of preseason hopes of qualifying for State, the 5th place finish and 142 points exceeded pre-race expectations for this young team that had been depleted of a number of its top runners due to injury.
The #7 ranked Denver East Girls will race in 5A State Meet Championship at 1pm on Saturday at the Norris-Penrose Center in Colorado Springs. Scudamore and Beardsley will compete in the Boys 5A Championship at 2:20pm.
The Angels will have a bus making the trip down to the meet, leaving at 9am from East. Students interested in making the trip to support their team should let Coach Kohuth know.
Important Dates:
10/28: Colorado State Cross Country Meet
11/5: Denver East Cross Country Celebration Banquet and Awards (please get your ticket by Oct 30)
11/8: 2-Mile race at Niwot High School (fun for all levels; a good tune-up for going to Nike SW): https://runsignup.com/Race/CO/Longmont/2Mile4REAL
11/18: Nike SW Regionals, Mesa, Arizona (all levels of runners welcome; talk to Coach Scudamore or Coach Kohuth by October 28. If you are attending, add your information here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TMKeXkeXxPzJoBTt3jbuccx9cXFMHQDl5WxTCbPcx0w/edit?usp=sharing
July 23-25: Mark your calendars for East Summer Training camp at Snow Mountain Ranch.
Denver East High XC 