{"id":34598,"date":"2023-04-17T10:39:56","date_gmt":"2023-04-17T16:39:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortezs-cruzan-sprints-into-elite-company-with-big-wins\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:19:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:19:27","slug":"montezuma-cortezs-cruzan-sprints-into-elite-company-with-big-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortezs-cruzan-sprints-into-elite-company-with-big-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s Cruzan sprints into elite company with big wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Joel
Joel Priest\/Special to The JournalMontezuma-Cortez\u2019s Zander Cruzan, show in an archived photo, continued to expand his repertoire Saturday at the Abel Velasquez Invitational, topping the field in the triple jump with a debut mark of 41 feet, 7 inches.<\/span>Joel Priest\/Special to The Journ<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

As if there were any doubters that remained, M-CHS senior Zander Cruzan proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that he is the fastest sprinter west of the Continental Divide in Colorado. By late May, he might prove to be the fastest in the state.<\/p>\n

In front of a field of the Western Slope\u2019s top dashers on Friday, Cruzan put on a display, breaking 11 seconds in the 100 for the first time this season and lowering his own personal best in the 200 meters by a tenth of a second to easily outdistance the field in the Phil Wertman Invitational at Stocker Stadium in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

Cruzan matched his personal best in the 100 (10.78 seconds) to win by nearly three-tenths of a second, but saved his top performance for a couple of hours later.<\/p>\n

In the 200, perhaps Cruzan\u2019s strongest sprint distance, the senior, who will run this fall at University of Northern Colorado, fired out of the blocks and scorched the field, winning by nearly a full second in a new personal best time of 21.66.<\/p>\n

As a point of reference, Cruzan\u2019s 200-meter time is now the fastest time run by a 3A athlete this season, is the first sub-22 second effort in the classification, and as the season reaches its midpoint, it serves as the third-fastest 200-meter time for any athlete in all classifications in the state.<\/p>\n

His 100-dash time also has him in the state\u2019s top 10 in all classifications as he eyes lofty goals for the busy month ahead.<\/p>\n

Contributing to the relay teams, M-CHS owns some of the state\u2019s top 18 times in the 4\u00d7100 and 4\u00d7200, which would qualify the boys groups for the state championships if the meet were held this weekend. The Panthers posted a second-place finish in the 4\u00d7200 (1:34.00) and a third-place mark in the 4\u00d7100 (45.08) in the invitational.<\/p>\n

In the girls competition, freshman Marlee Mack has emerged as one of the top hurdlers in the state\u2019s 3A classification. Mack added another trio of top-five finishes, taking fourth in the 100 hurdles (17.54), fourth in the 300 hurdles (53.51) and fifth in the long jump (15 feet, 3\u00bc inches). The Panther relays added sixth place finishes in the 4\u00d7100 (58.18) and 4\u00d7200 (2:04.68).<\/p>\n

The Panthers track and field teams look forward to competing closer to home this weekend, as they will travel to Durango for the Ron Keller Invitational on Saturday, April 22 \u2013 their final tune up before the Intermountain League Championships on April 28, a meet M-CHS will host at Panther Stadium.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Panthers senior posts personal and state best times in 200 meters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29,346,594],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-sports","tag-track-and-field"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34598"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82672,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34598\/revisions\/82672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34598"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}