NXN-SW: Surprises in Short Supply in Week 2

Neil Longenbaugh leads the charge for this year's version of the Red Army. Photo contributed by Gary Murray.

While it was another slow weekend of action across the NXN southwest region, this will be the last such slow weekend of the 2010 season until after the various state meets conclude on November 6.

Already a full week into their season, Utah saw the biggest action at the American Fork Grass Relays. And, much after the manner of the May Day parades in the former Soviet Union, the full assembled might of the American Fork boys' team was on public display for this 5 X 2-mile relay event. The relays are entirely on grass and feature hay bales at multiple points on the one-mile circuit. It ends up being a lot of hay bales.

Not only did the Cavemen knock 41 seconds off the existing course record (previously held by the 1999 Mountain View team) with a 52:14, but they also posted five of the twelve fastest legs on the day.

Oh, and this was no small meet. A total of 37 boys varsity teams competed in the Grass Relays. Armed with that piece of information, now stop and consider the implications of American Fork grabbing five of the top twelve splits; only seven boys from the remaining 36 teams managed to split up the top five from American Fork. Just to pile on a little, the top two splits for American Fork from the JV relays would also have easily broken into the top 20 splits in the varsity relays.

Austin West (American Fork) claimed the top split on the day with a 10:02, good enough for the fourth-best split ever at this meet. Ahead of him in the record books? Oh, just a few guys named Luke Puskedra, Dustin Bybee, and Josh Rohatinsky. Dallin Taylor of Hunter managed the second-best split of this year's meet at 10:09.

More than two minutes back in second was the squad from Davis. Another minute-and-a-half back of Davis was Bingham in third. American Fork appears poised to take on all contenders this fall.

For the girls, Davis made a compelling statement that they are back and to be taken seriously on the Utah scene. Their 64:42 total won the meet, but fell well short of the course record 62:32 posted by Bingham in 1999. Davis did, however, outrun second-place Alta and third-place Park City by more than two minutes each. Shea Martinez of Davis nailed down the top girls' split of the day with a 12:23.

There were a couple other varsity meets in Utah plus a couple from New Mexico this weekend, but results have been slow to trickle in. So far as NXN-SW is concerned, the most interesting event in the Land of Enchantment this weekend was the scrimmage at Albuquerque Academy.

A relatively limited affair, the scrimmage hosted only Eldorado, Manzano, and Sandia in addition to the home team of Albuquerque Academy. AA has a new course on campus, so compare these results to known results from previous years with a grain of salt, please.

That said, the Red Army (Kedge's Red Army, not Kruschev's) hosted a May Day-esque parade of their own in the heights of Albuquerque. Although no official scores were kept, AA grabbed the top five places, led by Neil Longenbaugh's 16:06. The top five for AA were each under 17:00. Incidentally, all five were seniors.

Elsewhere in New Mexico, the girls from Hobbs bested the field at the Clovis Invitational. Cleveland and Rio Rancho both had teams in the field, but I have found no individual results from which to assess the strength of their lineups in the meet. Put a sticky note on the Hobbs page and see if anything comes of that.

On the boys' side, Rio Rancho put away the field rather easily, scoring 34 points in a 10-team meet that included their own second team as one of the ten.