The crowd at Jeffco Stadium knew something the public address announcer didn’t in the final seconds of the girls 3A 3,200-meter championship Friday.
Just as the announcer called out Shelby Stableford’s name, Hotchkiss freshman Natalie Anderson sprinted past Stableford, eliciting the loudest cheer of the day as Anderson won in 11:03.83, less than a second ahead of Stableford, a junior from The Classical Academy.
Anderson led for the first seven laps of the 8-lap race, with Stableford tucked right behind her. Stableford made her move with 400 meters to go and opened a gap before Anderson mustered up a kick.
“That’s probably the fastest 100 meters I’ve ever done in my life,” Anderson said.
In earlier event finals, Heather Bates of Discovery Canyon won the 4A 3200-meter run in 10:57.79. Birdie Hutton of Shining Mt. Waldorf won the 3,200-meter final in 12:09.06.
— Lindsay H. Jones, The Post
Now that’s fast — sort of.
Pikes Peak junior Micah Tate wasn’t the fastest there’s ever been, but he still set a record. Sort of.
Tate ran a time of 10 minutes, 36.06 seconds on Friday morning at the 1A state boys track and field championships, winning the 3,200 meter run at Lakewood’s Jefferson County Stadium. He was more than 11 seconds faster than runner-up Manuel Tarango of Holly.
In the process, Tate set the 1A state meet mark. But there’s an asterisk to that record because this is the first year of the 1A state meet.
— Michael Hicks, Special to The Post
Two more years to go.
Daniel Weirich is only a sophomore but the Eads discus thrower is already putting himself on the map.
He easily won the state championship in 2A on Friday morning with a throw of 162 feet, 2 inches. Rye’s Ty Van Oort was second at 155-10.
Now Weirich, nor anybody else for that matter, is anywhere near close to the national mark set two years ago by former Buena Vista standout Mason Finley, but he just might be on track to challenge the 2A state meet record that Mike Tomasini of Brush set in 1964 with a toss of 178-6.5.
— M.H.
Start to finish.
Michael Cernoia was hoping for a state record, but instead the Pueblo West senior will just have to settle for a first state championship.
Cernoia led from start to finish in winning the boys’ 4A 3,200 in 9 minutes, 22.62 seconds. He held off Cheyenne Mountain’s Jake Fox, who took second in 9:27.99.
The state meet record was set by Kevin Williams of D’Evelyn in 2008 with a time of 9:06.27.
— M.H.
A tuneup for the 400
Boris Berian knows the pressure is on. The Widefield senior came into Friday’s 4A boys 800-meter run as the favorite, but Cheyenne Mountain’s Nolan Mayhew is right there with him. And so it was no surprise that they were running neck-and-neck with each other.
Maybe it was a bit surprising they started their kick for the finish with 300 meters left, but that’s just how close these two are. Berian held a miniscule 21-hundreds of a second advantage entering the state meet. Then the two went out and electrified the crowd at Jeffco Stadium just before a light rain storm entered the stadium.
Berian, who is also the favorite in Saturday’s 400, held off Mayhew in a state-meet record time of 1 minute, 52.18 seconds. Mayhew finished in 1:52.66, which also topped the previous meet record of 1:52.71, previously set by bobby Potrykus of Conifer in 2006.
“I just don’t like losing. Whenever somebody starts passes me I stick with them like that. I make sure to stay ahead of them,” Berian said.
— M.H.
