The Liberty Bell Invitational has achieved outsized importance for most high school cross country athletes in Colorado. Expectations for fast times are high, to say the least. For the coaches, Liberty Bell serves the purpose of measuring the team against the best teams in Colorado, our region and our league at what is the midpoint between the beginning of the season and the start of the championship season. Saturday turned out to be one of those days on which very fast times indeed would be run, when record books would be rewritten, and even many of those who didn’t feel like they had great races ran personal bests. And as the team scores got posted, the East Angel coaches began to feel pretty good about where the teams are at this point in the season.

Eleven of the top 12 ranked 5A teams in the state for both the boys and girls competed at Liberty Bell Invitatinal, including 4 of the top 30 ranked girls teams in the nation (2 of the top-10). The East Girls competed in the Sweepstakes division, reserved for the top ranked teams regardless of school size, while the East Boys competed in Division 1, the races for the largest schools not in the Sweepstakes division.

The Varsity Girls were the first to race. The Angels managed the always stressful and chaotic start at Liberty Bell well, and at the mile mark the foursome of seniors Scout Chomas and Julieta Ochoa, and juniors Avery Johnson and Corrine Kennedy had established good position within the competitive field, while the trio of senior Mary Clare Nussbaum, junior Lola Carhart and sophomore Lila Brown raced a bit further back. At 2.5 miles, Chomas and Ochoa had established a bit of a gap on Kennedy and Johnson, with Nussbaum closing the gap a bit between her and the teammates ahead of her, and Carhart and Brown trailing not too far behind. Chomas closed fast to post a blazing 18:09 for 32^nd place, a one-minute personal best and a time that makes her the #2 performer all time for Denver East High School. Ochoa finished only a handful of ticks back, running 18:15 for 42^nd place, a 45 second pr and #3 all time for the Angels. Johnson closed fast for 56^th place in 18:31, a 24 second pr and #4 all time for East with Corrine Kennedy close behind in 18:32 for 58^th and #5 all time.  Nussbaum broke on to the all-time East top-10 record board with her 62 second pr of 18:46 for 66^th place (#8 all time for East). Carhart crossed the line with a 31 second pr, good enough for 88^th place and 10^th all time for East, while Brown took 113^th in 19:32 – a 34 second personal best. As a team, the Angels finished with a total of 235 points, taking 7^th place of the 22 schools competing in this prestigious division.

The Varsity Boys produced more than a few notable marks of their own. The boys also got off the line well and positioned themselves for success. Coming through the mile, the Angels were led by senior Henry Bennett running with the lead pack, with small gaps separating senior Isaiah Springer, senior Jack Gertge, senior Kyle Kojima, junior Emery Wagner, senior Mason Harper, and sophomore Tre Evens from one another. By 2.5 miles those relative positions held, with Springer and Kojima making the biggest moves up through the total field of runners. All closed the last half mile well, with Bennett sprinting to a 3^rd place finish in 15:44, a personal best that moves him up to #7 all time for East. Springer broke on to the top-10 all time list at #8 with his 15:50 finish for 7^th place. Gertge crossed the line with a 32 second pr in 16:27 for 27^th place. Kojima had a breakout performance, taking 80 seconds off his previous best time, running 16:45 for 44^th place. Personal bests followed for the rest of the Angels with Wagner in 16:45 for 52^nd, Harper in 17:17 for 79^th, and Even in 17:27 for 87^th. The Angels totaled 133 points for 3^rd place in the division – a rare podium finish for the Angels at this meet.

In the JV Girls race, sophomore Fiona Jeong and ninth-grader Tessa Fe Morris got out aggressively and continued to run hard among the top handful of runners in the race all the way through the finish, with Morris crossing in a personal best time of 19:45 and Jeong in a personal best of 19:46, for 5^th and 6^th respectively. Ninth-grader Norah Dysart moved into the top-20 over the second half of the race to take 17^th in a personal best 20:17, with sophomore Ainslie Mohr trailing not far behind and posting a personal best 20:31. Ninth-grader Cate Carhart closed out the scoring for the Angels, finishing in 21:28, a 90 second personal best, for 56^th place. This all underclasswomen team finished 2^nd in the Sweepstakes JV1 race with 114 points, suggesting the Angels have among the best team depth in Colorado.

The shape of the Angels JV boys attack looked similar to that of the JV girls, with a couple Angels running up front, a strong supporting cast, and exclusively underclassmen among the scoring five. Freshmen Liam Gerber got out fast and hung on for 5^th place in 17:53, a 92 second personal best. Classmates Noah Erwin and Evan Mucharsky-O’Boyle closed well to take 8^th and 9^th in 18:00 and 18:02 respectively. Sophomores Finley Knight and Luke Rasquinha moved up throughout the race to take 19^th and 27^th in 18:22 and 18:35. Seniors Abraham Morginsky and Alexi Mays ran 18:44 and 19:18 for 34^th and 57^th. The Angels totaled 66 points for a very satisfying 2^nd place finish.

The Open Girls were led by another notable performance by junior Lola Kinsella, who ran 21:04 for 5^th place. She was followed by sophomore Imogen Nemitz (20^th, 22:23), senior Helen Love (40^th, 22:59), junior Emmalou Weidmann (42^nd, 23:06), and ninth-graders Rachel Jackson (46^th, 23:08) and Clementine Wolpert (47^th, 23:10). The Angels finished 4^th of 15 teams in the Sweepstakes Open race.

The Open Boys Division 1 race saw some Angels jump to the lead from the start. Freshman Elias Striker went nearly wire to wire to take the win in 18:27, an 18 second personal best. Junior Zach Smiles fought off some lingering illness to run 18:44 and take second in the race. Freshman Sam Schmidt ran aggressively from the start and hung tough to finish in 19:05 for 5^th place. The Angels closed out their scoring with sophomore Owen Van De Velde breaking the 20-minute barrier in 19:49 for 22^nd place, senior Micah Gallantz closing well in 19:56 for 23^rd, freshman Will Weidmann running 20:29 for 29^th, and junior Jackson Ruedi running 20:40 for 33^rd. The Angel boys totaled 53 points for 3^rd place, a single point behind Cherokee Trail and Regis Jesuit.

The Angels will go split squad over the next 2 weeks. The Varsity and JV1 squads will skip the Northfield Invitational as they prepare for the Rim Rock Invitational in Kansas the following week. The rest of our JV runners will be asked to step up into scoring roles for the varsity and JV races at the Northfield Invitational on Saturday.