The American Fork girls celebrate a regional title and take aim at state next week. Contributed photo.
For those of you trying to keep up with the risings and fallings of many teams, here is your weekly dose of help!
Nevada
Lake Mead Invitational - Green Valley runs a strong first here, beating a good Basic team along the way. Palo Verde cleans house in a serious way on the girls side. Not knowing what the course was like makes some things difficult to say with any certainty, but it is of some note that none of Palo Verde's scoring five were below 20 minutes. Centennial was not part of the long list of teams at this meet.
At this point, the Lake Mead Invitational results are the only thing I'm seeing out of Nevada in the last week that have "regionally significant" stamped across the top. There were others meets in the state, but results are difficult to come by for those meets.
Arizona
Last week, of course, Arizona went all-out for the Desert Twilight, so it's not to be considered odd if things were a little quieter in Arizona this week. But, before getting to what actually happened this week, we'll go back and make note of one we missed last week:
Central Park Invitational - This meet actually took place in Huntington Beach, California, but Arizona power Flagstaff went out and made some serious Central Park noise. The boys took a convincing win in sunny California. The girls? Well, they won, too. Both teams won over seem pretty decent competition. It's time to be thinking of Flagstaff as a regional championship race team, or two.
Now, back to this week's action in Arizona...
Bud Davis Invitational - Tuba City hosted their own meet this weekend and gave us a nice look at some small schools competing against other small schools. Sometimes that tells you more than trying to assign meaning to small-school results from a very large meet. What we do know out of this meet is that the course ran very slow and the Shiprock (NM) girls dominated over Page, Tuba, and an offloaded Ganado team. Ganado travels to the Rio Rancho Jamboree in New Mexico this week, where we should get a telling look at how good that team is. Tuba's boys had no trouble bringing home their own hardware, with Pinon and Shiprock taking second and third.
New Mexico
Northern New Mexico Championships - This one tends to be a small-school affair, but there are several strong small-school programs in northern New Mexico. Unfortunately, no results from this meet have made it our way.
Albuquerque Metro Championships - All the large schools in the Albuquerque area get together for this one. And, this year, they all got drilled by Rio Rancho, whether you're asking about boys or asking about girls. It's tough to avoid the conclusion that Rio Rancho is the top team in either gender in New Mexico, though the Hobbs boys might eventually have a say in the coronation. Albuquerque Academy (a small school) and Eldorado ran 2-3 in the boys. Cleveland and Volcano Vista ran 2-3 in the girls, with Albuquerque Academy finishing fourth. These are, unequivocally, among the best teams in New Mexico.
Patason Amesoli - There are few better small-school gatherings around the SW region than this one. Laguna-Acoma and East Mountain, two small school powers of some tradition in New Mexico, went 1-2 in the boys race. It looks to me like East Mountain's best outing of the year to date. Window Rock (AZ) put the hurt on the field in the girls division. We haven't talked much about Window Rock to date, but it would be nice to see this team in a small-school championship race in November.
The big-deal meet of the New Mexico invitational season comes this week at the Rio Rancho Jamboree. There will be few secrets left uncovered by this one.
Colorado
TCA Titan Thunder - Los Alamos came up from New Mexico to claim both titles fair and square, but not before getting a couple of stiff challenges. TCA boys and Salida's girls (both small-school franchises) had nice showings.
Pat Amato - This is the traditional big meet in Colorado on this weekend, and there was big news to be had. A couple of very recognizable names in Colorado high school cross country didn't finish their races here, and it remains to be seen what impact that might have on the rest of the season. Broomfield slips by Cherry Creek for the girls title. Rocky Mountain gets by Monarch for third, but Monarch was resting their top two girls. Wheat Ridge, a 4A power, finished in fifth. Boulder pounded a field that included Cherry Creek and Monarch for the boys title. In so doing, Boulder positions itself as one of the top boys teams of concern in Colorado.
Doherty Spartan - The main news of concern here is that small-school Alamosa continued to show well, the boys finishing third and the girls fourth. Also of note was a solid performance from the Coronado girls in claiming the meet title. The Coronado girls may be your girls sleeper team of the fall for this state.
Northern League - Thompson Valley, a team of no small tradition that has been a little on the side of quiet this fall, rose up and smote the competition for two team titles. If you had hastily dismissed Thompson Valley from consideration, it might be time to go back and think about them again.
Delta Pantherfest - If we needed any more convincing that Battle Mountain is a team of concern (whether small school or overall) we got it here. Other solid small-school performances came from Glenwood Springs (boys) and Steamboat Springs (girls).
Montezuma-Cortez Ancient Trails - Honestly, this meet didn't amount to very stiff competition for the Durango boys, and the course is slow, but Durango dominated just the same.
Chris Severy - Telluride, yet another daunting small-school program in Colorado dominated both side of this meet. The terrain was challenging; don't be fooled by the times.
Windjammer - Arapahoe gets solid performances from both boys and girls to win both sides of this meet, but the girls are sternly challenged by Grandview along the way.
Utah
We're about a week away from Utah's state meet, so most of what we saw last week in Utah was simply regional qualifying. And, as a rule, it's not very tough for most top teams in Utah to advance to state, so we don't necessarily look for statement kind of performances at these meets. As an aid to interpreting region numbers, the numbering of regions in Utah begins with the largest schools and progresses to smaller schools.
Region 2 - The Davis boys and Davis girls both come one individual away from perfect scores. Such is the measure of the Davis domination of this region.
Region 4 - Try to imagine American Fork getting upended in their own region and on their own course. It happened. Lone Peak did the duty and Lehi very nearly piled on. Again, it might be unwise to read too much into this, holding those sort of judgments for state. In any case, this is as tough as regions get in Utah. The American Fork girls took the top four places and cruised to an easy regional title.
Region 5 - Up north a little, Ogden had an orange sweep of their region, though Bonneville made it very competitive on the girls side.
Region 7 - Timpanogos roughed up their region a little in advance of state, taking both team titles and coming within five points of a perfect score on the boys side. Mountain View and Timpview made it competitive on the girls side.
Region 8 - While Uintah runs away with the boys title, it gets incredibly close between Wasatch, Maple Mountain, and Salem Hills on the girls side. While these are not programs we typically think of as the powerhouses of Utah cross country, there is some potential for one or more of these schools slipping into the regional championship race.
Region 11 - Logan takes an easy route to a pair of regional titles.
Unfortunately, unless someone coughs up some small-school results out of Utah, we'll have to wait until next week's state meet to see what small schools in Utah could be prime candidates for a small-school championship race in Arizona next month.