Berthoud Weekly Surveyor | Covering all the angles in the Garden Spot

Varsity off, but underclassmen run around competition

October 13, 2016 | Cross Country

By Kristi Leonard
The Surveyor

The Berthoud High School varsity runners had the week off of competition to prepare for next week’s Tri-Valley Conference meet, so this week was an opportunity for the freshmen and sophomores to race against kids their age. This is the first time Berthoud has entered a team in the Pat Amato Frosh/Soph Invitational but decided to add this meet to the schedule for the 21 young runners on the team this year.

Most of the teams entered in the meet were 5A schools, although Roosevelt and Erie fielded a team as well. The future looks bright for the Spartans as the boys placed sixth out of 15 schools; the Lady Spartans, which has fewer members than the boys, placed ninth.

Sophomore Kade Leonard led the boys team with a sixth-place finish. Leonard has spent most of the season running in a swimming pool due to an injury but has recovered and is just seconds off of his fastest 5K time from last year, running 18 minutes, 39 seconds on the Northglenn Open Space trail.

Siler Stein had his highest finish of the year, placing 20th. Stein held a strong early pace and though he faded a little at the end, the sophomore gained valuable experience of what it is like in the front of the pack.

Samuel Hatton was the third Spartan across the line with a time of 20:06 for 39th place. Hatton has set a new best time every race this season. He looks on track to be able to break the 20-minute mark by the end of the season.

Rowan Carr is always running close to Hatton and finished in 46th place with a time of 20:23.

The first freshman from Berthoud was Bryce Mitts who finished in 52nd place in 20:29. Eric Godfrey (61st), Dylan Carder (73rd), Carter vonSeggern (77th), Ashton Gonzales (93rd), and Tucker Horsch (95th) finished in the top 100 of the race that included Legend, Rocky Mountain, and Erie High Schools that were the top-three teams in the team competition.

On the girls side, Alex Schultz was part of the second pack of girls at the start of the race. The freshman lost contact with the runners ahead of her as they ran through a series of hills just after the half-way point. Schultz got a second wind and began to catch up but ran out of distance on the course to catch them. She finished in 19th place with a time of 22:54.

Sophomores Cailey Archer and Kathryn Mathiesen placed 39th and 43rd with times of 24:05 and 24:17, respectively.

Freshman Julianne Evans Dennison has been working on breaking the 25-minute barrier all season. She got very close in running 25:01 for 49th place. Training partners Lily Burtis and Kimberly Blough ran the race very differently but ended with almost the same time. Burtis took off faster than normal and passed through the two mile with a split much faster than she has been running. It was clear at that point she would set a new personal-best time, which she did with a time of 26:13, good enough for 74th place. Blough took off very conservatively and moved up places throughout the race. Blough continued to pass girls throughout the entire course and finished with her fastest time of the season in 26:20 for 76th place. Lela Urbain ran the fastest she has done for a 5K cross country course by finishing in 88th place in 27:34.

 

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