Montrose, Olathe cross country teams show promise in Delta

DELTA — Nearly 20 area teams from Gunnison to Steamboat Springs competed in a cross country meet Saturday at Delta’s Confluence Park.

Montrose and Olathe coaches Brian Simpson and Vic Kintz were both enthused about the meet and pleased with the showing of their athletes. 

Running for the Pirate girls, Samantha Jacobsen finnished 48th out of 100 runners in her race with a time of 25:26, while the Pirate boys were led by Fabian Hightower and Marco Miranda, who were 52nd and 74th out of a field of 120 with respective times of 20:27 and 23:53.

Coach Simpson was especially pleased with the showing of his boys, who were running fresh off an important meet at Fossil Ridge on Thursday. The Indian varsity boys squad finished second overall in the meet with the following top runners: Michael Wallendorff (18:27) 12th out of 76; Chris Ferguson (18:34) 13th; Sutton Peterson (19:04) 18th; and Zach Geesing (19:15) finished 20th.

The Indian girls team entered two girls in the varsity field of 66 runners with Allison Martin finishing 32nd at 23:32 and Logan Triesch crossed the finish line 40th at 25:15.  Simspon was happy overall with their effort and also with the effort of some of his younger girls in the junior varsity race, gaining good experience in their first meet.

Regarding the boys’team, although happy with their performance, he emphasized, “But we have a lot of work to do, especially in order to be among the top four teams in the region who will eventually qualify to move on to the state meet.”

The Indians will be pointing toward the regional meet later in October, again at Confluence Park in Delta, which will include 1A through 4A teams. Along with the top four teams, the top 15 individual finishers will qualify for the state meet.