Titans track slashing through season

“We’re really firing on all cylinders”

Titans track had its hands full this past weekend as they headed to Grand Junction to compete in the annual Frank Woodburn Invitational. The meet offered the Titans another chance to knock down their personal times as they lined up in one of the biggest meets of the season against 5A and 4A programs.

“There are two things working: one, the kids know they’re going into a big meet so they’re excited and two, when they see someone in front of them, they’re going to run that much faster,” explains head coach Dustin Simoens.
And while overall team scores may pale in comparison to the bigger teams, the Titans did fare well on an individual level and continued to slash time off their personal records.
Forrest Smith and Monika Olesen led the way for the Titans in Grand Junction, with Smith posting a first and second place and Olesen rattling off two top-five finishes.
Smith opened the day taking second in the mile with a time of 4:39.63. After leading for most of the race with one other runner on his heels, Smith was eventually outkicked down the stretch.
“We talked after the race and I told him he needed to start his kick much earlier in the race, with 400 to 450 meters left maybe,” says Simoens. “He doesn’t have as much top-end speed as some other kids.”
Smith made the necessary adjustments in his next race, the 800-meters. After building a solid lead on the first lap, Smith kicked into high gear with 400 meters to go and charged to the win with a time of 2:02.12, the fastest 800-meter time among 2A runners so far this season.
Aiden Truettner set two more personal record times in his events, the mile and the two-mile. Truettner ran a 4:54.07 in the mile to place seventh and then a 10:40.11 in the two-mile to finish in sixth place.
“He’s just been consistently knocking off time,” says Simoens.
Olesen proved once again that while a stand-out in 2A, she can also handle her own among the 4A and 5A sprinters. Olesen posted a fourth-place finish in the 200-meter dash and then sprinted to a fifth-place finish in the 400-meters, setting a new Crested Butte school record time of 1:01.60.
“She’s dominating the school record board,” says Simoens.
Rosie Ewert is close behind among the sprint events, placing seventh in the 100-meters and ninth in the 200-meter dash.
Suzanna Dumas scored additional points for the Titans with a seventh-place finish in the 100-meter hurdles.
While the relay events have proven to be the bread and butter of the Titans team this season, illness and injury had the coaches scrambling to put together relay teams for both the boys and girls teams.
“We had a little bit of a mix and match for our relays,” says Simoens.
Nevertheless, both the girls and boys managed to put up respectable results. The boys 4×100 placed fourth and 4×200 took sixth, while the girls 4×100 and 4×400-meter relay teams finished sixth in both races.
Overall, the Titans did exactly what Simoens and the coaching staff hoped for at Grand Junction.
“There was a lot of strong competition there and we just wanted to get individual times down and I think we did all right,” says Simoens.
As of right now, several Titans have posted times in events that place them in the top 18 in the state among 2A athletes, a mark that qualifies them for state.
“We’re getting more and more kids into the top 18 each week,” says Simoens. “But it’s hard to say for sure how we stack up. We won’t really know until the final two weeks of the season.”
The Titans have this weekend off from competition and then head into the April break before returning to action on Saturday, April 19 in Gunnison.
“We have a bunch of workouts we’re giving them for break and hopefully they do them,” says Simoens. “We’re really firing on all cylinders, starting to sharpen things and we’re hoping to keep it going.”