This past Saturday the Rangely Panthers toed the line for their final race of the season: the Colorado 2A State Cross Country Championships. A fall full of miles stacked upon miles, intervals on the track, hill repeats up county roads, fartleks on the grass, and traveling all across the state to compete had finally come down to this one race. The biggest stage in Colorado high school distance running was set with all of the state’s best runners meeting at the distance of 5-kilometers to race.
“All season long we have had our eyes on the state championship,” said Coach Beth Scoggins. “We had one of our best showings as a team last year and we knew that we could improve upon that. Everyone really stepped up all season long and improved tremendously.”
As the gun fired, James Talbot and Andrew Dorris took off together. The duo ran together for quite some time, maneuvering through the course. Talbot started to open up as the race progressed into the latter half and worked his way through the crowded, hilly course. When it came to sprinting through an arena full of cheering fans, Talbot poured all what he had left into his 30th place finish. Talbot completed the race in 17:55, more than 2:30 faster than he ran the year previously as a freshman. Dorris held on with the pack of competitors and finished hard as well. Dorris finished in 18:37 to claim 56th, 13 seconds faster than he was a year ago on the same course.
“James and Andrew did a great job of being aggressive in the race without compromising their finishes. They got out hard, stuck with the group through the tough parts of the course, then really worked the last mile to try and move up as much as they could,” said Coach Scoggins.
The trusty trio of seniors Anthony Dorris, Kevin Wren and Fisher Winder did what they do best to grab the third, fourth and fifth spots on the team. The group ran hard and pushed themselves the whole way. As the race progressed, they started to separate and spread out. Anthony Dorris ran an impressive 19:41, not too far off of his personal best on what is a challenging course, and improved 1:26 from his junior year. Wren came across the line next in 20:28, 42 seconds better than last year. Winder then crossed the line in 20:57, well over a minute faster than he had run as a junior. The seniors finished 95th, 114th, 121st, respectively. The final racer on the Panther roster was freshman Logan Peterson, who secured his spot at state last week with a stellar performance at the regional championship. Peterson continued to impress as he finished hard in 21:32.
“It was so fun to get to watch Anthony, Kevin, and Fisher compete at state again. Those three are such great teammates and ran so hard,” said coach Scoggins. “Logan ran a great race as well. It was his first time running at state and he gave it his all. It’ll be exciting to see him continue to improve.”
The Panthers top four finishers were tallied up to score them as a team. Behind their performances, the Panthers finished 16th overall, an improvement upon last year’s 18th. The Rangely cross country team saw huge improvements all year long and reached many goals.
“I am so, so proud of all of my runners,” said Coach Scoggins. “James has improved from a freshman running in the middle to back of races to a sophomore who won a couple of races and is always competing at the front. My seniors, wow. They are such a fine group of gentlemen. They led by example every day and brought out the best in each other and their teammates. They are a group that works so incredibly hard while always looking for a chance to have fun. I can’t begin to express how much I’m going to miss them. We also saw a ton of growth in our freshmen and unbelievable amounts of improvement in Macy. It was a great, great year.”
Special to the Herald Times
