Mountain Vista reigns
COLORADO SPRINGS» In past seasons, as Mountain Vista cross country coach Jonathan Dalby built the Golden Eagles into a perennial Class 5A power, he’d take his teams out of state at midseason to compete in a national meet.
This year, however, Dalby switched things up. Mountain Vista stayed in Colorado, using high-caliber local meets such as the Liberty Bell and the Pat Patten Invitational to prepare for an inevitable showdown at state with defending boys champion Monarch and twotime defending girls champion Broomfield.
The strategy worked to perfection, as the Golden Eagles fended off both those teams to capture the program’s fifth boys state championship and first girls state championship on Saturday at the Norrispenrose Event Center.
“We knew all year that there were really great teams here in Colorado, and we decided not to travel out of state during the regular season this year because we knew the best competition we were going to find was going to be here at home,” Dalby said. “We want to race against the state’s best as much as we could, and I think that gave us a lot of confidence heading into today.”
The championship is especially sweet for the Mountain Vista girls, as sophomore Jenna Fitzsimmons (18 minutes, 10.3 seconds) and junior Caroline Eck (18:16.4) finished onetwo to upset Broomfield, which is equipped with several Division Ibound harriers.
“The hardest part was the final mile, but I just had to push through,” Fitzsimmons said. “My legs were burning, but I just kept telling myself, ‘Do it for the team, do it for the team,’ over and over again in my head.”
And though Mountain Vista bested Monarch in the team race, Coyotes senior Charlie Perry broke the 5A state-meet record in 15:36.8 to win his first individual title by beating out Rock Canyon senior Chris Theodore (15:42.1) and Dakota Ridge junior Austin Vancil (15:46.1).
For Perry, who finished third at state last year, the key to victory was knowing when to turn on the jets, which proved to be during the latter half of the course, near its water crossing.
“We’ve been doing all of our workouts based on going faster at the end than the beginning, so I figured if I took the race slow and take my chance the last mile, that’d be my best shot at winning,” Perry said. “So I just sat back and waited until the 2-mile mark.”