The Lull Before the Storm

Loyd's Lake Classic Invitational

Monticello is a cool place in Utah, and Loyd's Lake is one of the cooler places around Monticello. Cooler still when there's a cross country meet going on. 

Host school Monticello turned back larger school programs like Piedra Vista (NM) and Montezuma-Cortez (CO) to win the boys' title but Piedra Vista took the girls' trophy with them to the Land of Enchantment. The 2-3-4 finish of Collin Hatch, Easton Nielson, and Justin Wright, all at right around 18 minutes for 5K, bodes well for Monticello's prospects in 1A later this fall. Brittany Keith of Monticello was the top Utah girls finisher at 23:05.

Murray Invitational

Summer Harper continues her tour of meet domination. The Davis girls, however, won the meet, though maybe not with quite the level of utter domination we've grown accustomed to seeing from them. This probably isn't the largest fish to be fried in the Davis creel, however, so we readily extend them a pass on this one without wondering what's wrong. And, seven girls under 19:45 never qualifies as sloppy work. American Fork, once again bouyed by an outstanding balance among their front five. 

Right now, one of the biggest questions in Utah boys cross country concerns whether anyone will be able to touch Ben Saarel. Jerrell Mock made a gallant attempt but missed at this meet. Connor Mantz and Jaydn Asay were outstanding at 3 and 4 as well. A still bigger story emerging out of this meet, however, was Bonneville tying Davis through the first five runners. Davis still won on a tie-breaker, but Davis had enough of their usual top guns running that this result warrants some attention. Ultimately, though, we revert to the comment about larger fish to fry in the preceding paragraph before assuming any crumbling at the foundation of the dynasty. Regardless, however, their performance at this meet stamps Bonneville as a certified member of Utah's class of top teams. And, it was a nice, balanced effort by the Bonneville team at this meet.

Also noteworthy here is the #6 team finish by Desert Hills, easily the best 3A result coming out of the boys' side of the meet. This serves to validate a very nice performance by Desert Hills earlier in the season. 

Ogden/Weber City County Meet

Those 15-point team scores I alluded to last week very nearly happened here. Ogden's boys go 1-2-3-4-6 for 16 points, and the girls go 1-2-3-5-7 for 18 points. It's a very good year to be a Tiger.

Congratulations to Sterling Brandley of Ben Lomond and Samantha Heaton of Weber and Lyna Garcia of St. Joseph's for breaking up the sweeps!

Utah Pre Region 1 Meet

It was a two-mile event in the grass and the first of two races during the week for a large number of Davis runners. How dominant was Davis on what had to be a zero-adrenaline meet for the Darts? Try the top 14 places for girls and the top nine places for boys on for size!

Meet Results

Wasatch XC Invitational

Soldier Hollow is the place. This is where American Fork boys took their race this weekend.

The Caveman had a little bit of unusual softness at the #5 scoring position here, but still beat second-place Herriman at every scoring position except #1. That exception belonged to Chuk Mitchell, who won the meet with a time of 16:13 on something other than a flat-and-fast three mile course. Herriman easily beat out Bingham for second, further solidifying their position among Utah's top boys teams.

If you care for a glance at the future of Utah high school boys cross country two and three years down the road, check out the results of the FR/SO boys race.

Herriman's Lucy Biles completely dominated the girls race, winning by a margin in excess of 30 seconds. The Lehi team of #2 Jackie Heaps, however, went home with the team trophy. In this case, as in most cases, depth rules the day.