{"id":37690,"date":"2022-10-25T02:21:17","date_gmt":"2022-10-25T08:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-cross-country-races-to-state-meet\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:39:12","slug":"mancos-cross-country-races-to-state-meet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/mancos-cross-country-races-to-state-meet\/","title":{"rendered":"Mancos cross-country races to state meet"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mancos'
Mancos' Teagan Archer (430) leads Caprock Academy's Maddie Grossman (346) and Lake County's Ella Bullock (417) late in the 2A-Region 4 girls' race Friday, Oct. 21, at Confluence Park in Delta. (Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

With all the marbles on the line, Mancos found one more gear.<\/p>\n

After a season filled with top finishes, the Bluejays clawed for every place \u2013 and they needed each one \u2013 en route to a fifth-place team finish in the 2A Region 4 meet.<\/p>\n

The Jays flew around the Confluence Park course, nabbing a couple of key season-best performances, which will propel Mancos to a return trip to the State Championship meet at the Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs on Saturday, Oct. 29.<\/p>\n

Sophomore Teagan Archer continued to lead the blue-and-white pack, taking sixth in the meet (20:35) \u2013 and now the Bluejays will bring plenty of state meet experience, as all four runners in their scoring pack competed in the 2021 state meet.<\/p>\n

\"Mancos'
Mancos' Adaline Kearns (432) runs late in the 2A-Region 4 girls' race Friday, Oct. 21, at Confluence Park in Delta. (Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mancos'
Mancos' Braxton Dennison (439) strides ahead of Olathe's Chase Ripley (477) and others late in the 2A-Region 4 boys' race Friday, Oct. 21, at Confluence Park in Delta. (Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mancos'
Mancos' Maddie Swortwood-Green (437) displays confidence while running early in the 2A-Region 4 girls' race Friday, Oct. 21, at Confluence Park in Delta. (Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Mancos'
Mancos' Braxton Dennison (439) strides ahead of Olathe's Chase Ripley (477) and others late in the 2A-Region 4 boys' race Friday, Oct. 21, at Confluence Park in Delta. (Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dolores'
Dolores' Elia Lowe (394) runs early in the 2A-Region 4 girls' race Friday, Oct. 21, at Confluence Park in Delta.
\n(Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dolores'
Dolores' Maya Lowe (395) perseveres late in the 2A-Region 4 girls' race Friday, Oct. 21, at Confluence Park in Delta.
\n(Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dolores'
Dolores' Aaron Nielson (400) runs late in the 2A-Region 4 boys' race Friday, October 21, at Confluence Park in Delta.
\n(Joel Priest\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Dolores'
Dolores' Bridger Beyhan (398) stays ahead of Ouray's Keaton Nelson (490) late in the 2A-Region 4 boys' race Friday, Oct. 21, at Confluence Park in Delta.
\n(Dolores' Bridger Beyhan (398) stays ahead of Ouray's Keaton Nelson (490) late in the 2A-Region 4 boys' race Friday, October 21, at Confluence Park in Delta.)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Head coach Brady Archer\u2019s runners seemed to sense the magnitude of the moment, as sophomore Adaline Kearns posted a tremendous performance to take 15th overall, thanks to a new-best time of 21:35.<\/p>\n

On the flat track bordering the Gunnison and Uncompahgre Rivers, senior Madilynn Ritter took 24th place, just over a minute behind Kearns (22:36), while junior Chloe Endres took 55th (24:49) to help the Bluejays score 95 points.<\/p>\n

The regional field proved to be one of the deepest in recent memory, with the addition of 2A power Lake County and the emergence of Caprock Academy as a strong program \u2013 making Mancos\u2019 state qualifying performance all-the-more difficult.<\/p>\n

Junior Mandi Peacock took 65th (26:02), and freshman Maddie Swortwood-Green finished 71st (26:30) as the Jays will see some of their youth movement perform on the state\u2019s highest level.<\/p>\n

Dolores, meanwhile, finished just outside of the state cut line, finishing seventh as a team with 120 points.<\/p>\n

The Bears posted several season-best efforts, led by Elia Lowe\u2019s 19th place \u2013 just four spots off an individual qualifying spot \u2013 with a time of 21:56.<\/p>\n

Following in quick succession, Keira LaRose (26th, 22:42) and Siena Parr (38th, 23:40) also claimed their fastest races of 2022. Maya Lowe rounded out the scoring for the sophomore-led Bears with a 23:59 5K to take 47th, while senior Noble Traweek capped her cross-country career in 90th place (31:29).<\/p>\n

Lake County (25 points) took the regional title, ahead of Caprock Academy (43), Olathe (76), and North Fork (77), with Mancos edging Crested Butte for the final state spot.<\/p>\n

In the boys race, neither Mancos nor Dolores had enough competitors to field a complete team, but that didn\u2019t stop the Bluejays and Bears from posting strong final races.<\/p>\n

All three Bears athletes ran their fastest times of the season, as freshman Aaron Nielson took 56th overall with a time of 20:47, and classmate Bridger Beyhan took 68th in 21:56. Sophomore Wyatt Kiddo rounded out the Bears effort with a time of 22:21, good for 74th.<\/p>\n

Mancos junior Braxton Dennison ran a 20:00 5K, taking 42nd in the process, while senior Soren Braford-Lefebvre capped his high school cross-country career with a 61st-place finish (21:01).<\/p>\n

Mancos will toe the line in the 2A championship race at 1:40 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 29, on the rigorous course at the famed Colorado Springs rodeo venue and surrounding Bear Creek Regional Park. The Jays finished 10th as a team in 2021, and look for another strong finish to cap the campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bluejays claim last qualifying spot, edges out Dolores at regionals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,37,29,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-newsletter","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37690","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=37690"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83748,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37690\/revisions\/83748"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37690"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}