Windsor track and field coach Lyndsey Lewis had to pull teeth to get Mikey Munn to run track his junior year. Saturday, he was crowned champion in all three sprints — the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes — in Class 4A.
Perhaps none of it would ever have happened if Lewis’ kids hadn’t played youth basketball with Munn what seems like forever ago. Because as approachable as Munn has always been, the previous acquaintance planted the seed to get Munn in some spikes.
Plus, Lewis’ husband just happens to be the football coach at Windsor, where Munn has excelled as a quarterback and safety, committing to South Dakota to play the latter.
Coming off an injury his junior year before the indoor track season only increased his hesitation. But as Munn would tell you, his competitive nature brought it home. “I like to compete, so I said, ‘Why not?’” he said.
Once he started feeling better physically, he never looked back, particularly during his senior year. He was on Windsor’s 400 relay at the state meet last season, but did not qualify for any individual race.
“I think over the last year, he’s grown up,” Lewis said. “He had an incredible football season and that gave him a ton of confidence, and then this indoor season gave him even more confidence. Then the first time we came out on the track this year, he blew us away and itap been like that ever since.”
Lewis saw the possibilities early on this year when he ran his last 200-meter dash of the indoor season. Munn didn’t catch on until mid-April.
At the Pomona Invitational, one of the biggest meets in the state before championship season, Munn took convincing first-place finishes in the 100 (10.75 seconds) and 200 (21.20 seconds). He didn’t run the 400 that day, but he walked away feeling something special was on the horizon.
Now that he scaled the mountaintops at the CHSAA state track and field championships, he can’t help but reminisce on the short, sweet journey on the rubber. Because of the difficult nature of learning an entire college football playbook and otherwise integrating oneself into a team, he does not plan to run track right away at South Dakota.
“Itap bittersweet. I mean, I love track, itap been a short-lived experience,” Munn said. “I’ve loved every minute of it, but I’m excited to move on, too.”
His final moment on a high school track was a no-doubter in the 200-meter dash. Making up the stagger quickly, he cruised to the title to complete the sprint sweep. The first person he greeted afterward was teammate Kiana Cumings, who finished in the top three of the three sprints.
Interestingly, her Kryptonite of the day turned out to be another athlete who swept the sprints: Abigail Trapp, a freshman from Golden.
In fact, the total number of sprint sweeps on the day was four out of a possible 10, including Munn, Trapp, Cherokee Trail’s Peyton Sommers in Class 5A boys and Cheyenne Wells’ Roxy Unruh in Class 1A girls.
Trapp was by far the youngest to accomplish the feat, which is even more impressive since she hadn’t really run track much before high school. She enjoyed running, but didn’t do it competitively on a regular basis until she arrived at Golden.
Now, she’s put herself on the map in the Colorado track world, perhaps sparking the beginning of a long career of gold.
“I honestly can’t believe it,” Trapp said. “Going into the season, I wasn’t running the times I wanted. Then all of a sudden, after a few races, it started clicking and it kept going. I’ve been getting huge PRs and I’m just beyond happy.”
As such, unlike Munn and Lewis, she didn’t know early on that a triple crown was a possibility. Those thoughts only crept in after the state prelims, when she ran the top finals-qualifying marks in all three.
But even then, there were doubts. While she ran her hardest every time she touched the track, part of her thought the other runners were saving their energy for the finals.
“I ended up running really well and I was super shocked,” Trapp said. “I was really nervous coming into today because I thought maybe girls were throwing during prelims so they’d be ready for today.
“I can’t believe I got this far. I barely thought I was going to qualify for state, so itap just so mind-blowing.”
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