While most of the boys and girls varsity team members took a week off from racing, the rest of Denver East Cross Country headed up to the Thornton Invitational, where valuable racing experience was gained over a course that has traditionally been a fast one for the Angels. There were more than a few personal bests run on Friday and top JV runners got experience racing at the varsity level. Link to results.

The Open Boys and Girls races were the first on the course. For the boys, freshman Rodney “Tre” Even had a breakthrough performance, running 20:24 for 36^th place of 277 runners. Even’s classmates Vincent Newland and Weston Dodson were the next across the line for the Angels in 20:50 and 21:09 for 46^th and 57^th respectively. Junior Tomas Cole and sophomore Zivi Shiroff completed the scoring for the Angels crossing in 21:20 and 21:28 for 62^nd and 69^th place. With a total of 225 point, Denver East finished 6^th of 20 teams.

In the Open Girls race, senior Ivy Parish took the win in her season debut, running 21:20. Senior Yelena Konowal ran 24:45 for 21^st. Ninth grader Poppy Hirsch (37^th, 25:21) and senior Franny Hebbard (39^th, 25:25) were the next across the line for the Angels. Ninth grader Audrey Hinshaw (47^th, 25:55) was yet another newcomer to the team showing significant improvement this week. Those five Angels put up a total of 118 points to take 3^rd of 18 scored teams.

In the Boys Varsity race, juniors Micah Gallantz and Jackson Gertge led the Angels with substantial personal bests of 18:34 and 18:38 respectively to finish 80^th and 81^st.  Fellow junior Kyle Kojima slipped under 19 minutes for the first time this season as well, running 18:55 for 104^th. Sophomore Zach Smiles continues to show great week over week improvement and ran 19:25 for 125^th in his varsity debut. Junior Alex Wilkerson, also tasting this level of varsity competition for the first time, ran 20:54 for 169^th. Together this JV-1 group totaled 494 point for 21^st place of 23 varsity teams.

It was yet more ninth graders leading the way for the Angels in the Girls Varsity race. Paola Ochoa (20:40), Ainslie Mohr (21:17), and Emma Maldonado-Ramos all ran to huge personal bests to take 19^th, 33^rd, and 68^th. Sophomore Grey Jensen ran 23:36 to grab 95^th place, while junior Helen Love took 104^th in 23:46, sophomore Abby Forsberg 117^th in 24:10, and junior Daniela Maldonado-Ramos 119^th in 24:15. The first five Angels totaled 283 points for 9^th place of 22 varsity teams, demonstrating East’s great depth in running its JV-1 squad against varsity competition.

Twenty-one Angel runners showed up Saturday to scout next week’s course, the iconic Liberty Bell Invitational. Liberty Bell marks the midpoint in our invitational schedule when things really start to heat up (the competition rather than the weather). Liberty Bell is known for scorching fast mid-season times and the Angels are starting to look ready to deliver. No fewer than five nationally ranked girls teams and three nationally ranked boys teams will be competing in addition to the majority of top-10 ranked teams across 4A and 5A in Colorado. Division assignments, bus information and line-ups for the Varsity, JV, and Open races will be posted here later in the week. East will not send any athletes to the Denver West Cowboy Invitational, so we can all scratch that off our calendar as we focus on Saturday’s races.

Senior team bEast mode shirts have arrived and will be distributed on Monday to those who have paid. If you ordered a shirt and have not yet paid, please do so. If you did not order a shirt but would like one, please email Jennifer Reich (jareich424@gmail.com) and she can let you know if we have any inventory.