The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“We want to set the athletes up to get the best performances out of them”
By Than Acuff
With some tweaks to training and the addition of athletes from their winter sports, the Crested Butte Titans track and field team headed to Cedaredge at near full strength and it appears to be paying off as they Titans posted 29 personal record (PR) efforts, 12 season best (SB) results and 19 top 10 results in everything from sprints, to distance, to relays as well as the high jump and long jump.
“We used to practice before school on Wednesdays but this year we practice in the afternoon, so we’ve had more time to do technical work,” says coach Shari Sullivan-Marshall. “Honing in on those little things is what makes them better and it’s fun to see the technical stuff (co-coach) Sophie’s been working on pay off.”
That was on full display in the relays and sprints and the boys relay team of Finn Veit, Flint Hoyt, Cody Pleak and Giles Billick posted the top result for the Titans coming from behind to win the 4×800-meter relay.
“Cody closed the gap to give Giles someone to hunt in the final leg and he totally ran our team into first place,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “Giles is a hunter.”
Sawyer Barney, James Brady, Colby Smith and Bradley Jose passed the baton around to take fourth in the 4×200-meter relay and then Billick, Brady, Barney and Smith doubled down to take fourth in the 4×400-meter relay.
The girls 4×400-meter relay team of Josie Feier, Eva Loughlin, Ilo Hawley and Sophia Bender, who just joined from her Nordic season, also seized on the day to put their work into action as they ran to a second-place finish. Meanwhile, the girls 4×200-meter relay crew of Paloma Lamar, Hawley, Sage Johnson and Loughlin ran to a third-place finish.
“Every relay we ran scored points which is awesome,” says Sullivan-Marshall.
Bender and Lamar also stepped into the individual events as Bender took second place in the 400 meters and Lamar posted a third-place result in the 100 meters.
“She lowered her PR to finish third,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “She is so quick to the gun. So much that we thought she had a false start and it’s all about the start in the 100.”
And while Lamar had the top Titan result in sprints, progression among all Titan sprinters was on display in Cedaredge.
“Almost everyone PR’d across the board,” says Sullivan-Marshall.
Billick, Hoyt and Pleak are also distance specialists with Billick and Hoyt finishing second and fourth respectively in the 1600 meters and Pleak coming in sixth to rack up more team points.
Sullivan-Marshall and co-coach Sophie Klein used the Cedaredge meet as well to get their athletes into the mix in several other events and continued their efforts to find out who is capable of what.
“It was fun to be able to play around with events,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “The kids definitely stretched themselves.”
The team heads to Grand Junction for the Frank Woodburn Memorial at Stocker Stadium on Saturday, April 5. The Grand Junction meet is massive with teams from 5A down to 2A competing so Crested Butte returns to a different focus as far as results. Yet it still provides an opportunity for the Titans to shave time across the board.
“We’re back to competing against those in your heat and yourself,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “We like Grand Junction, we usually pop some good times there. We want to set the athletes up to get the best performances out of them.”
The bad news is that spring season is also testing season for a lot of kids so the Titans team will be somewhat depleted due to ACT testing.
“ACTs will be pulling away some athletes, but we have a deep roster,” says Sullivan-Marshall. “We definitely still have some quality performers to put into events.”
