Five county runners qualify for state meet

RBC — Rio Blanco County will be represented by five high school cross country runners in the state meet this Saturday in Fort Collins. Rangely finished fourth as a team in the boys’ division and qualified three boys and one girl for the state meet, while Meeker will send one boy.
Hyrum Byers ran the 5-kilometer course in 18:58, good enough for seventh place in the regional-qualifying meet held last Saturday in Delta.
“We had four out of five runners qualify for state‚“ Rangely head coach Erin Geer said. “We expected to qualify some but four is great. They have surprised us since the beginning. All of them have taken off one or two minutes off their time from the start of the season.”
Meeker’s Terrence Casias finished four seconds behind Byers for a free trip to the state meet. Casias took two minutes off his last year’s time on the same course.
“Terrence is happy he qualified for the state meet as a senior,‚“ head coach Kris Casey said. “Terrence deserves all the credit for qualifying, he has worked extremely hard all season and had set state as his season goal.”
The top 15 runners in the meet qualified for the state meet and Rangely’s Blake Wanstedt and Devon Rose made the cut. Wanstedt finished 14th, while Rose took the final qualifying place.
Rangely’s Rosalise Coombs was the only girl runner from Rio Blanco County to qualify for the state meet. Coombs ran the course in 23:56 and finished in 14th place.
“We want all of them to have fun and run their best this weekend‚“ Geer said.
Meeker’s Erica Roybal returned from an injury to run the course but did not qualify, nor did her younger sister Tracey.
Meeker senior Keenan Walter finished 18th and Rangely senior Ryan Cramer was 20th.
The state meet will be held Saturday in Fort Collins at Fossil Ridge High School.
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