Denver East Cross Country runners ran historically great performances on Saturday at the Colorado State Cross Country Championships. 

All week the forecast for Saturday had been for cold temperatures, which definitely came to fruition. All season the forecast for the Girls 5A Championship had been that Air Academy High School senior Bethany Michalak (US ranked #4) would run away with the title. Michalak, with a seasonal best more than 40 seconds better than the next fastest runner in the race, predictably went to the lead from the gun, hammering out a blistering 5:11 first mile. East junior Rosie Mucharsky, who had won the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede on the same course at the beginning of the season, had mostly fallen out of conversations speculating on who would win the state meet title after a series of less impressive races in the middle of the season. Mucharsky went through the first mile Saturday with a pack of runners trailing Michalak by 17 seconds. Heading up and then down the course’s primary hill, the bottom of which is just past halfway in the race, Mucharsky looked to be in great position for a top three finish while Michalak, still with a 16 second lead, started to show some cracks in her running form. Over the final mile, Mucharsky and a second runner from Air Academy quickly closed the gap on the leader, whose early pace was causing her to falter badly. With less than 800m to run it was clear that Mucharsky would run past the early leader; she took the lead near the creek crossing (about 400m from the finish) and won the state title by a stunning 17 seconds in a personal best 17:28. 

The 2023 Angel Girls Cross Country Team was already the fastest in school history (18:57 average time for top-5 runners). On Saturday they became the top-finishing team at State Meet of any Denver East squad in school history with their 7^th place finish. Off the start line, most of the Angel girls were conservative in their approach, and through the first mile all were probably outside the first 100 runners with the exception of Mucharsky and senior Grace Todd who was just outside the top-50. At the mile mark, the Angels were in 12^th place as a team with Todd in 52^nd, ninth graders Avery Johnson and Corrine Kennedy in 103^rd and 104^th and sophomore’s Julieta Ochoa and Scout Chomas in 105^th and 106^th. These Angels stayed active through the challenging second mile, and the Angels had moved up to 7^th as team, dropping their team score from 316 at the mile to 244 point at 2-miles, with Todd in 44^th, Kennedy 77^th, Johnson 78^th, Ochoa 80^th, and Choma 86^th. This pack would continue to close through the finish, the team score dropping another 37 points as Todd finished a career best 37^th (19:20) in her third State Meet, Kennedy 55^th in a personal best 19:37, Johnson 64^th in a personal best 19:49, Ochoa 78^th in 19:57, and Chomas 83^rd in 20:03.  Senior Sophia Shiroff finished 132^nd 21:42 in her second state meet.  Of the six teams ahead of the Angels, four are nationally ranked – confirmation of the accomplishment of their finish in what is probably the toughest division of any state meet in the country. 

Two Angel boys, junior Jonas Scudamore (110^th in 2021, 34^th in 2022) and senior Connor Beardsley (119^th in 2022), toed the line for the final championship race of the day; both had the best race of their careers. As opposed to the 5A Girls race, the leaders of the 5A Boys race went through the first mile in a relatively tame 5:01 with no gaps between runners in the field. Scudamore came through the mile in 5:02 and 16^th place. As the leaders came down the hill, Scudamore was among the group of about 11 runners who had started to move away from the rest of the field, and by the 2-mile mark, Scudamore had moved up to 8^th place; he battled back and forth for 7^th place over the third mile before closing strong up the  final hill into the stadium and through the final straight away overtaking two runners and taking 6^th place in 15:42. Meanwhile, Beardsley had established himself in the top-50 runners from the first mile (45^th, 5:08) and held on through the finish, crossing in 47^th in 16:36, just a handful of seconds off his personal best and definitively better than his 12^th place regional finish had predicted. 

More East Angel Cross Country History:

Rosie Mucharsky is the first East Angel to win a Girls Cross Country title. The only other top-7 finishes: Dana Price, 4^th place in 1979 (the second girls state meet), and Kali Steven, 5^th place in 1988. 

Only three boys have finished better than Jonas Scudamore at the Colorado State meet since 1968: Ashi Geberkidane (1^st in 2012); Cerake Geberkidane (3^rd in 2012, 1^st in 2013); and Harrison Scudamore (5^th in 2016 and 2017). From 1953-1967, a total of nine Angel boys finished in the top-7 at the State Meet. 

And looking ahead:

We will celebrate these performances, our seniors, and all of the team this Sunday at our team banquet. Please buy your tickets now! https://east-xc-banquet-tickets-2023.cheddarup.com

For athletes training for the Nike Southwest regional, we will continue to meet at our usual practice times unless otherwise posted on Coach Kohuth’s door. Workouts will also be posted on FinalSurge. (You can add your intention to go and travel details here.)