Aurora – After a strained hamstring essentially short-circuited her junior track season, George Washington’s Talaya Owens is back and in the midst of her own mini-tour of vengeance.
Owens edged teammate KristaBelle Kiper in the 200-meter dash Saturday with a winning time of 25.55 seconds at the 50th Robert F. Caviness Invitational track and field meet at Aurora Public Schools Stadium, but a victory was not all that was on Owens’ mind.
It was at this meet last year in the 100 that Owens, who will run for Alabama, suffered the hamstring strain, an injury severe enough that it stunted her performance at the state meet. Now healthy, Owens is making up for lost time.
“I really wanted to break the (200) meet record (of 24.70 set by former Patriots sprinter Maruyka Honeycutt in 2003) to make up for last year,” said Owens, who finished second in the 100 hurdles by .01 of a second to Learsha Jones of Aurora Central and second in the 100 to Ashley Cruder of Eaglecrest. “I was still injured at state last year, but this year is going to be totally different.”
Cruder led Eaglecrest to victories in the 400 and 800 relays to help the Raptors to a second-place finish in the girls team race. The Arapahoe girls team easily took first place and Rangeview came in third. Fort Collins and George Washington rounded out the top five.
On the boys side, Fort Collins easily won the team title. Arapahoe was second, followed by Grandview, Highlands Ranch and George Washington.
In the day’s longest race, the 3,200, Fort Collins used old-fashioned teamwork to produce some team points for the Lambkins. Battling through gusty wind, senior Paul Brown and junior Brant Mason planned to draft for each other, but Mason admitted that Brown ended up pulling most of the weight.
And when Mason got a second or third wind down the stretch, he bolted out to take first place with a time of 10:21.87. Brown came in after Bobby Nicholls of Regis to give the Lambkins first- and third-place finishes.
“We were supposed to take turns to really push it, but I wasn’t feeling it. I ended up drafting behind (Brown) for most of the race,” Mason said.
Brown seemed not to care about the individual finish. He was more interested in the team aspect.
“That’s fine (that Mason won). It’s just more points for the team,” he said.
Brown and Mason were part of Fort Collins’ 3,200 relay team, which qualified for state with a first-place time of 8:08.32. Fort Collins’ boys 1,600 relay team and girls 3,200 relay team also grabbed first-place finishes.
South distance phenom Mohamud Ige waited until the very end to move ahead of Arapahoe’s Adam Glenn in the 800. Ige finished with a time of 1:57.17, .16 of a second ahead of Glenn.
Arapahoe’s Michelle Ripple reached 11 feet in the pole vault to set the only meet record of the day.
