Conner Mantz rolled in his 2014 cross country season opener as one of the nation's top returnees ran away with the win at the Highland Invitational with a 14:32 victory on the Sugar House Park's 2.9 mile course in Salt Lake City. Last year, Mantz finished second in the same meet and course with a time 17 seconds slower at 14:49. The closest finishers to the Sky View senior Mantz on Thursday were two juniors in Christian Allen of Copper Hills (2nd, 14:58) and Garek Bielaczyc of East High School (3rd, 14:59).
The American Fork boys did not compete at the Highland Invite, so the team battle ended up coming down between Timpagnos and last year's NXN qualifiers from Davis. The Timpaganos boys (86 pts) got the better of Davis (98 pts) on this day thanks to only a 30 second spread for their top 5 compared to a gap of 72 seconds for the Davis boys. Timpaganos had their entire top 5 under 16 minutes at Sugar House Park, while Davis looked great through their first three runners under 15:30, but lacked the depth in the opener to hold off Timpaganos for the team title.
The other high profile and national caliber runner from Utah in the meet was Herriman High School senior Lucy Biles. The Foot Locker All-American Biles had a tough opener with physical struggles and collapsing to ultimately finish 5th in the race. As a result, the door was open for others to seize the moment for the win with Park City senior Alyssa Snyder grabbing first place in a time of 17:27.5 to finish ahead of Davis girls #1 runner Aubrey Argyle (2nd, 17:33) and 2013 Foot Locker finalist Marlee Mitchell (3rd, 17:40). of Bingham. Snyder ran 4:59 in the 1600 and 10:30 in the 3200 last spring, so her track success seems to be translating well over into the early stages of the fall.
The Davis and American Fork girls figure to battle all season long for state supremacy in Utah as the first match-up went to the Davis girls (3rd at 2013 NXN) by a margin of 12 points with both teams well ahead of the next best teams in the field. Both teams had 6 runners under 19 minutes with Davis tallying 47 points and 54 second spread ranging from 17:33 to 18:27, while the runners-up from American Fork had 59 points with a time gap of 41 seconds from 17:57 to 18:38 for their top 5.
Highland Invitational (UT)
August 21, 2014 @ Sugar House Park in Salt Lake City, UT
- MileSplit Meet Page
- This Year's Results: Fresh/Soph Boys - Fresh/Soph Girls - JV Boys - JV Girls - Varsity Boys - Varsity Girls
- Last Year's Results