JOHNSTOWN — For 1,500 meters, Mountain View junior Olivia Gurrini stayed within striking distance of Timnath’s Izzy Schimmelpfennig in the 1,600-meter run during the first day of the Longs Peak League meet Wednesday at Roosevelt High School.
With 100 meters remaining, Gurrini made her move, eventually passing Schimmelpfennig just before the finish line to claim the league championship in a winning and meet-record time of 5 minutes, 7.02 seconds, only .08 ahead of the Cubs standout.
“My goal was to just kind of stick with that pack and just kind of pull myself through the race,” Gurrini said. “I really wanted to try to work really hard that third lap because that’s kind of where I have been struggling, but I feel like I pushed through. It felt really good. I felt a lot like myself again. I feel like I haven’t been able to do that for a while.
“Izzy’s a great competitor. I love competing against her. She definitely helped pull me through and just being able to know that I can compete with her, I’m excited to see what we can do at state.”
Gurrini missed the state meet last year after suffering a stress fracture in her hip during the season. She is determined to run in Lakewood this year, and with just a couple of weeks before the season finale, she has the 11th-fastest time in Class 4A in the 1,600 and the ninth-fastest time in the 3,200, which she will run Friday.
She wasn’t the only Mountain View female to win a league title Wednesday. Senior Madeline Clark dominated the field in the 400-meter dash, crossing the line in 56.48 seconds. Her time was a league-meet record and just four-tenths of a second off her fastest time this season of 56.08.
Clark also qualified fifth for Friday’s final in the 100-meter dash. The Mountain View girls are in fifth place after eight events in the team race with 44 points.
Thompson Valley is third in the girls’ team standings after the first day with 48 points. The Eagles were led by their pole vaulters, as Meg Bakker (9 feet, 6 inches), Hadley Weir (9-6) and Carson Chou (9-0) went 3-4-5. Weir was fifth in the long jump (34-8) and Kiera Schra was fourth in the high jump with a personal best of 5-3.
The Eagles were third in the 4×800 relay (10:04.94) and fourth in the 4×200 relay (1:56.43).
The Berthoud girls are fourth in the team standings with 44.5 points. Kiera Harris led the Spartans on the first day with a first-place finish in the discus. Her winning toss of 99-4 was eight inches farther than the second-place finisher.
Sofia Sigg was third in the 400 (59.33) and the Spartans were second in the 4×800 relay (9:48.82).
On the boys side, Thompson Valley is second in the team standings with 45 points through six events. Roosevelt leads with 63.
A year ago, Trent Gabrielson set the meet record in the 1,600-meter run in 4:27.88. Wednesday, three of his teammates ran under that time. Antheney Herre was first in 4:19.29; Levi Smela was second in 4:19.84; and Grant Pierson was third in 4:21.72. Jayden Mandile was fifth in 4:34.06.
“Fun, fun day with the boys,” Herre said. “We loaded up with the four juniors, come out here, execute, go 1-2-3 with Grant and Levi, just a fun day. I was in that race last year. I was behind Trent when he broke that record, so it was nice get my name up there.”
Berthoud is second in the team standings with 39 points. The Spartans were led by Rhys Sattler, who was third in the long jump (20-11.75), and Sam Whitaker, who was third in the shot put (47-11).
Mountain View finished the first day of the meet with 19 points. JJ Phillips was third in the 400 (50.30) and the Mountain Lions were second in the 4×200 relay (1:29.84).
The meet will conclude Friday.
