The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Overcame weather, timing issues to post 21 top 10 results
By Than Acuff
Much like all the Titans teams that were in action this past weekend, the Crested Butte Titans track and field team spent Saturday, April 6 in Grand Junction battling against the elements. Yet, they too rose to the occasion as nearly every athlete either set a new season best or personal record (PR) and while facing much larger programs, and the team posted 21 top 10 results with the boys team finishing seventh out of 21 teams and the girls placing 15th as a team.
“For the boys to finish top 10 is huge,” says coach Shari Sullivan-Marshall. “Two years ago we’d leave this meet with four points, it was great to see all of those top-10 performances.”
To say the weather was tough would be an understatement as athletes competing in Grand Junction had snow, wind, clouds, sun and then even stronger winds to contend with. Then, just as schools were lining up for the fourth event of the day, the weather got worse blowing the timing camera over at the finish line and bringing more mayhem to the day.
“It took them 90 minutes to fix the timing, that was a huge bummer,” says Sullivan-Marshall.
The Titans got out to a strong start before all the timing mayhem. The coaches decided to take Giles Billick and Jake Pendy out of the 4×800-meter relay line up and instead ran James Brady, Cody Pleak, Max Sullivan and Sam Bullock, and the four Titans connected for a fifth-place finish.
“They ran super solid not having their two leaders,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “It was fun to see them step up their game.”
Soon after that, Mike D’Apolito lined up for the 110-meter hurdles. D’Apolito set a new school record in the 110-meter hurdles the week before and then broke his own record in Grand Junction to finish fourth.
Meanwhile, the Titans excelled in field events at the start of the meet as well with Ethan Kaufmann setting a new PR by over a foot in the long jump.
Then came the massive delay but once everything was repaired, the girls 4×200-meter relay lined up as the skies unleashed snow on the venue with Sage Johnson, Ilo Hawley, Sophia Bender and Brie Bender running to a sixth-place finish.
Brady would go on to run a PR in the 400 meters to place 10th while Sophia took seventh in her race and the 1,600-meter Titan runners had quite the day as Josie Feier finished ninth place and Pendy took sixth while Kenny Bullock ran a PR to place ninth.
The 800-meter run is where the Titans did the most damage to rack up serious team points. Feier backed up her 1,600-meter performance with another ninth place finish in the 800 meters while Pendy took second, Billick third, Kenny sixth and Sullivan eighth in the boys race.
“They took half of the points available,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “They raced really well.”
The Titans continued pushing through the elements to set more PRs in the 200 meters and the 3,200 meters and then opted out of the final event, the 4×400-meter relay, to avoid any potential injuries.
The Titans have a new meet on their schedule this year as they will head back to Grand Junction to race on Friday, April 12 before taking off for the April break. It is the coaches’ hope that several of the Titans will use this opportunity to improve their position for qualifying for the state championships.
“We have five or six events in the top 25 and the top 18 go to state,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “Last year we didn’t have a meet this week and that hurt us. Having this meet is pretty pivotal for us in the big picture.”
