Any way you look at it, Ogden figures to be a major player in tomorrow's 3A state championship, but orange and black aren't the only colors to consider.
Girls
If both teams are healthy and ready to rumble, this could be one of the best team races of the entire state meet. Park City started the season strong and then suffered through a lull. The Miners have come back with a mean streak the last couple of outings, however. They have the appearance of a team whose troubles are behind them.
Ogden started strong and stayed strong for several weeks, but then some key names turned up missing from meets. Team scores leveled out a little. It's been something of a rough ride the last few weeks. The regular roster seemed to be back in force for the Region 11 meet, however, so the Tigers look to be back on top of their game as well.
Either team is capable of some high-end kind of performances. Picking a winner between these two is dangerous business.
Cedar, Pine View, and Stansbury each have very good teams, but they probably need some special to happen tomorrow to become serious players in the team title race.
Alisse Walker of Park City and Sarah Feeny of Ogden will step onto the line as presumptive favorites in this race, but don't be quick to dismiss the chances of Cedar's Aimee Bryson. Also, give a little attention to the possibilities for Judge Memorial's Maddie Criscione. Criscione was having a rather pedestrian kind of season until her explosion onto the scene in the Region 10 race. You get some bonus consideration points for running only 11 seconds behind Walker.
As an interesting aside, the most common surname in the 3A girls race is Allred, with five entries. Those five entries represent four different schools, so you can't write this one off to a large, closely-spaced family dominating the roster of a single program. There is probably some obscure fact of Utah state history that I'm missing and which helps to explain this phenomenon, however. If you're privy to that fact, please feel welcome to fill me in.
Boys
If you like close state races, this one isn't holding out a lot of promise for you. From the outside looking in, Ogden comes in at a prohibitive kind of advantage. Simply stated, nobody else has the density of numbers up front that Ogden has. Bear River, the team closest to Ogden in the rankings got rolled by Ogden at last week's regional meet, placing their first runner behind Ogden's fourth and their second behind Ogden's sixth. That leaves a lot that has to change in seven days for a different outcome to emerge.
But all that makes for a great prelude to the old agade, "There's reason why they run the race, folks." Behind Bear River is another large gap, with the next cluster being made up mostly of Iron and Washington County schools from the southwestern corner of the state.
The individual contest also has a substantial favorite, but maybe not quite as substantial as the team race. If Park City's Ben Saarel doesn't win this thing, that is very big news. Jordan Cross (Ogden), Michael Finch (Pine View), and Austin Slade (Stansbury) figure to be the ones with the best chances of making it uncomfortable for Saarel.
By now, your mind is probably drifting to more important things like, "What's the most common surname in the 3A boys race?" That honor comes down as a four-way tie. And, guess what, Allred is part of that tie! Also figuring in the tie are Robinson, Douglas, and Christensen. And now you know.