Eagle Valley wins 2nd-straight Western Slope track and field boys team title

Last weekend’s 4A Western Slope League track and field championships in Grand Junction had a little bit of everything for Battle Mountain and Eagle Valley: season bests, individual victories, league awards and a team title.

The Devils showed no weakness — in the field or on the track — in winning their second-straight boys team crown.

“We’re just super deep,” said sprint coach Alex Aragon, who shepherded three Devils into the 100 and 400-meter dash finals. Kaden Kraft and Blake Anderson went 1-2 in the latter event and Kraft took second to Glenwood Springs star Joaquin Sandoval in both the 100 and 200.

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“He was giving Kaden all the competition,” Aragon said of Sandoval, who turned and laughed with Kraft as the pair crossed the 200-meter dash finish line near the end of the two-day meet. “Kaden almost beat him and Joaquin knew it.”

Anderson improved his one-lap sprint time to 51.3 but sits just outside the top-18 state qualifying slots going into the final weekend of regular season meets.

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“He’s come a long way,” Aragon said. “We think he has a great shot to make it to state.”

The Devils didn’t even use Kraft — substituting in sophomore Jason Flaherty — in the 4×400-meter relay and still won in a season-best time (3:26.16).

“We didn’t realize how fast he was in the 400; we just tossed him in there one week and he pulled out a 53 out of nowhere,” Aragon said of Flaherty. “He’s a great kid and an easy athlete to coach.”

The Huskies had a lot to celebrate, too. Will Brunner won the 3200 and 1600-meter runs and placed second in the 800 and 4×400-meter relay, earning WSL athlete of the year honors. In the field, Quin Thuon took the pole vault title and Cooper Skidmore won both the shot put and discus and scored in the triple and long jumps as well.

“Cooper was phenomenal,” head coach Rob Parish said of the senior, who is exploring competing in the decathlon at the University of Wisconsin next year.

The tasty race of the meet was perhaps the boys 800-meter run, which featured some of the best runner’s in region history going toe-to-toe for a two-lap test of speed and strength. Eagle Valley’s Armando Fuentes took the lead from the gun with a 58.1-second first 400.

Brunner and Porter Middaugh — who clocked an 8:41 3200-meter earlier this season – followed, as did Summit’s Josh Shriver. The Tiger was fresh off a spirited third-place finish in the 1600-meter run (4:15.66) the previous day, where he finished just behind Middaugh (4:15.51) and the school-record-setting Brunner (4:13.8). Devils distance coach Charlie Janssen said the plan was for Fuentes to try and “run the legs off” of his Eagle County rivals.

“Just go out and hammer and hopefully he puts enough distance where they’re not able to catch him,” the coach said.

With less than a lap to go, Brunner — who won the 3200-meter run earlier that morning in 9:18 — and Middaugh sat in third and fourth, roughly 20-meters behind Fuentes. In the final 70 meters, both found another gear, kicking past the field. Middaugh ultimately took the win in a program best 1:55.60, denying his teammate a distance triple by just 0.09 seconds.

“They have this calculus – they know how much they need to push, how much they have left,” Parish said of his two prodigious talents. “And they ran them down.”

Brunner came into the weekend needing a qualifying time for the 3200-meter run, an event in which he is the defending state champion. The future Harvard runner raced New Balance Nationals, the Arcadia Invitational and the Penn Relays this winter and spring — none of which are Colorado state meet qualifiers.

“It’s been so much fun coaching them,” Parish said regarding Middaugh and Brunner, before adding with a chuckle, “But it’s been very complicated. To manage them qualifying for everything they want to qualify, doing all this other fun stuff and having them have juice at the end — that’s been a challenge.”

Meanwhile, Cooper Filmore led the Devils distance squad with a 9:30.47 third-place performance in the 3200. Janssen is confident the future Fort Lewis runner will break Jake Drever’s altitude school-record of 9:29.02 next week.

“He’s been so consistent,” the coach said. “He’s going to drop a lot more than a second and a half, I believe.” 

Filmore returned for the 800-meter run as well, scoring points with a 2:00 effort.

“He can hold that rate of speed for such a long time,” Janssen continued. “He could run 2:00 10 minutes after a 10k.”

The back-to-back team titles, however, were a product of key performances across the board. Kevin Hasley picked up silvers in both hurdle events, Matthew Howe, Owen Murray and Bryce Benson went 2-3-4 in the pole vault and Zachary Bourke, Kingston Clous and Tiago Horriutiner claimed bronze medals in the shot put, long jump and high jump, respectively.

“That’s a super great accomplishment that hasn’t been done for a few years now,” Aragon said of the boys 49-point team victory over runner-up Battle Mountain.

Both teams are chasing state-qualifying marks this weekend at the Windjammer Track Classic in Englewood. The state track meet is May 16-18 at Jeffco Stadium in Lakewood.