Salida hoping depth an advantage in 3A girls cross country

The girls cross country program at Salida placed in the top five at the Class 3A state meet five consecutive seasons from 2008-2012, but had yet to achieve every team’s ultimate goal.

During last year’s state championships at the Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs, the Spartans overcame an ultra-challenging course and a strong 3A field to claim the state crown in dominant fashion with a mere 35 points. Estes Park was the runner-up with 94 as Holy Family and Frontier Academy tallied 106 and 110 points, respectively.

“It was definitely a dream season and we happened to run our best when it counted the most, which is always the goal of any coach,” Salida coach Ken Wilcox said of his first girls state championship at the school. “That’s how you draw it up and sometimes it works for you in your favor and sometimes it doesn’t. The girls just kept feeding off each other all year and pushing each other to new heights.”

Wilcox, entering his ninth season as the coach of both Salida’s boys and girls programs, coached his boys to a team title in 2009. He had a good feeling about his girls’ chances at the crown in 2013.

“We were cautiously optimistic throughout the season,” Wilcox said. “Kind of where we are geographically, we don’t always see all the teams. There’s certainly good teams here in the mountains, but you also just don’t see many of them until regionals or state. I think at regionals, when we just had a really solid race, I think we had four of the top five that day. At that point, I think that gave us a little more confidence and that carried over to the state meet the following week.”

Sydney Fesenmeyer, a junior, handled the field at the 3A Region 2 meet in impressive fashion with a 20-second victory over St. Mary’s Elena Slavoski and three of Fesenmeyer’s teammates. The effort helped the Spartans capture the Regional crown with thirteen points, 35 points clear of Saint Mary’s.

“Sydney, she certainly had a breakout season for us and it really came together for her at the regional meet,” Wilcox said. “That was the first time she had led our team all year. She’s always had the physical capabilities but then the mental side came, too.”

Fesenmeyer, who placed 17th at the State Championships as a freshman, had a splendid third-place finish in leading her talented teammates, Phoebe Powell (sixth), Taryn Ceglowski (tenth) and Bari Beasley (16th), to the sought-after crown.

3A has allowed six competitors to race varsity, the top four of which score for the team. 4A and 5A, due to obvious size advantages, allows seven competitors from each team to race varsity, five of which score.

Starting in 2014, 3A is implementing the same race seven, score five system as the bigger schools, a benefit to a Salida team with worthy depth. Salida returns all six varsity racers and a few others who battled for the final spots at the state championships.

Ceglowski is expected to be towards the front of the pack once again, especially after a breakout track season with a personal best of 5:16 in the 1,600 and a third place finish at 3A state track in the event. Ceglowski, a sophomore, also ran 11:54 in the 3,200.

Wilcox attributes the success of the girls program to work ethic and competitive fire.

“It’s a lot of hard work,” Wilcox said. “The kids, they put in the time in the summer. They really feed off of each other and they’re a real competitive bunch, which is really good, as a coach, to have a competitive team. Every now and then it can get a little chippy, but, as a coach, I don’t mind seeing that a little bit. At the end of the day, they’re all still friends and they’re pulling for each other.

“I think one thing that’s really helped us is that our kids have really bought in to the team concept of the sport of cross country,” Wilcox added. “That’s allowed them to keep pushing hard when you hit that point in the race when it’s really difficult.”

The team also likes to challenge themselves against the best Colorado has to offer. They’ll be competing against many of the 4A and 5A powerhouses at the Arapahoe Warrior Invitational and the Brooks/TCA Titan Thunder Invitational.

“We really enjoy running up against some of the bigger schools,” Wilcox said of the competitive invites.

“In the early years of coaching, we definitely got our butts kicked at those,” he added with a laugh. “But, I think it’s helped elevate our program as the kids we’re seeing what it looked like to be at the top. We see it, then we can dream it, then we can go out and figure out how to make that a reality.”

Wilcox noted his team has a healthy respect for their competitors and know nothing is a given in cross country, but they hope to make a state crown a reality once again.

Estes Park, Colorado Academy, Moffat County, and Kent Denver are among the teams looking to unseat the champs. Fesenmeyer, Powell, and Ceglowski could all be in the thick of the race for the individual crown.