Growing Grizzlies find success at state meet

The rebuilding Rocky Mountain High School cross country team gained experience and turned in some strong performances at the Wyoming State Cross Country meet in Cheyenne Saturday.
The Grizz and Lady Grizz held their own among Class 2A schools running at the Cheyenne Country Club.
“It was beautiful, maybe even warm,” head coach Tim Jones said.
He added that the course was a good course for the runners.
“They kept us running on the short grass a lot of the time, so the course was nice,” he said.
The top finisher for the Rocky Mountain boys was senior Noah Bisby, who ran a personal record time of 21:20 at elevation, Cheyenne being just over 6,000 feet above sea level, after running a PR of 21:41 at the conference meet in Ethete the week before. Bisby finished 49th in the 85-man field. This was Bisby’s first season running cross country.
“Noah worked hard all year. He just kind of continued to improve, and it was at elevation, so it was a good run,” Jones said. “He worked really hard Saturday and continued to move up.”
Also solid for the Grizz was junior Xander Tippetts, who ran a time of 21:49, finishing 54th.
“Xander ran well. He worked hard,” Jones said. “He didn’t improve his PR, but he did a good job for the race and elevation.”
Junior Cole Minchow ran a time of 24:14, freshman Dalan Wambeke 24:19. Senior Noah Johnson finished the course in 25:40, junior Alex Hedges in 26:09.
“Cole did a good job this year,” Jones said. “He became a team leader and he spoke to coaches about things like we needed certain types of practices, and he communicated for the boys with the coaches quite a bit. Dalan set a goal at the start of the season after his first run of where he wanted to get to, and he definitely was able to do that this year. There’s lots of room for growth. He’s a hard worker, and he’ll continue to improve as he works over the years.
“Alex came out, and I don’t know that he loves it, but he comes out and works hard every day. He has a good attitude, and he’s just a good influence on all the other kids. Noah (Johnson) ran a good race, too. He ran very hard. Cross country is a sport where you can run a PR one week and the next week just not have it and run a race you’re not happy with. We had a couple kids that probably ran those types of races, but they’re underclassmen and they’ll have a chance to do some work over the summer and next fall again and make another run at it.”
Girls results
The top finisher for the Lady Grizzlies was sophomore Evynn Alvarez, who finished 43rd in a time of 28:33, and senior Gwynff Bodtke was right with her in 44th at 28:38, followed by sophomore Ellie Alvarez in 45th at 28:44, one of her best times of the season. Senior Ashley Pizana set a new personal record with a time of 31:20, beating her time in Ethete by eight seconds.
“A couple of times we had to convince her (Pizana) that it was worth it, but she set a goal to work hard this year and to improve, and she did that all year long,” Jones said.
“The girls ran consistently,” Jones continued. “They worked hard. The elevation did affect them a little bit. Ellie probably made the biggest improvement from one week to the next (conference vs. state). Evynn struggled at times, but she finished the race strong and was able to be our lead runner at the end.
“Gwynff is a great leader. She’s very dependable, and we’ll miss her a lot. She comes out and does the work and does what she does.”
Jones said he would like to thank coaches Gerry Burton and Mindy Mickelson for their assistance this year.
“Gerry and Mindy were both 100 percent in, helping in any way they could,” he said. “They made a big contribution to our growth and our recruiting and just the overall enjoyment that the kids had. I couldn’t have done it without ‘em. We had a good group of parents that followed us all
year and were very supportive of not only their kids but all of our kids.”
He said the coaches learned a lot as a staff
and are looking forward to working with the kids in
the future.