Editor’s note: This story has been updated with the correct time for Ella Hagen’s 3,200-meter run.

The Summit High School track and field team were busy over the weekend. The varsity squad traveled to Lakewood for the David S. D’Evelyn Invitational while sophomore Ella Hagen flew to California for the highly competitive Arcadia Invitational.

After fighting through the cold and windy conditions that are common in the early part of the Colorado spring sports season, Summit was gifted with warm and near-perfect conditions between the two meets. 

The sunny and warm conditions gave way to a multitude of heat wins, personal best times and prepared the team for the latter part of the spring track season before state.

Displaying why she was one of the highest ranked girls in the nation during the fall, Hagen once again impressed at the Arcadia Invitational in Arcadia, California. 

With sea-level, oxygen-filled air and a stacked field of runners on her side, Hagen beat her personal best time in the 3,200-meter run by 37 seconds, running the race in 10 minutes, 13.18 seconds and placing 13th out of 29 girls in the race. 

The mark also reset Hagen’s school-record time of 10:50.05 in the event, which she set at last year’s state track and field meet. 

“It felt really awesome,” Hagen said. “It is the kind of meet that you go to in order to run fast. Competing in a field of this caliber, it is impossible to not give it your all, and that was no different this week. It feels really good to know that all the hard work we have been putting in up to this season is definitely paying off.”

Hagen was extremely pleased with her finish as a sophomore in the race, especially considering when the top nine girls in the race broke 10 minutes in the event — a feat that is a rarity for girls high school distance runners. 

Showing the depth of girls distance running in Colorado, four Colorado high school athletes broke 10 minutes while the remaining three athletes from Colorado ran under 10:50.

“Colorado girls have always showed we are really strong in the distance fields, and this race was no different,” Hagen said. “Everybody out there raced really well, and it is amazing to be a part of that. It is really cool to know I have the opportunity to race them.”

Prior to Hagen toeing the start line in balmy California, the rest of the Summit track and field team were running personal bests at the David S. D’Evelyn Invitational at Jefferson County Stadium.

Summit continued to perform well in the distance events following a solid showing in Erie last week.

In the boys 800-meter run, senior Dom Remeikis broke the two-minute barrier for the first time this season, running 1:58.68 for first place overall in the event.

Remeikis was followed by sophomore Will Bentley, who beat his time from last week and ran 2:11.38 for an 11th place finish and new personal best. 

Remeikis later went on to win the 1,600-meter run, where he ran 4:29.32. His time was nearly a second ahead of Conifer High School’s Patrick Doty in second place.

For the second time in two weeks, sophomore Josh Shriver won the 3,200-meter run by a wide margin. Unlike Shriver’s race in Erie though, Shriver had no wind to fight against, and as a result he snuck under the 10-minute mark for the first time in his career to finish in 9:58.34. 

In the girls distance events, sophomore Avery Eytel placed 10th in the girls 800-meter run with a new personal best time of 2:41.68. Freshman Lauren McCalla placed first overall in her first 3,200-meter run of her career with a time of 11:51.21. 

McCalla also competed in the girls 400-meter run. She was able to score more points for Summit alongside fellow freshman Faith Fox. McCalla ran 1:02.58 for fourth place overall while Fox ran 1:04.36 and took seventh place.

Fox also placed within the top 10 in the 110-meter hurdles. She ran 19.31 seconds for eighth place, bettering her personal best time by over a tenth of a second.

In the boys sprinting and field events, senior River McClung and junior Cam Fox led the team. 

McClung especially had a breakthrough day in both the triple jump and long jump. In both events, McClung placed within the top 10 and also leaped to new personal-best marks. 

McClung placed fifth in the triple jump with a mark of 40 feet, 10 inches and eighth in the long jump with a mark of 19 feet 10.5 inches. McClung bettered his previous personal best marks by 3 feet, 8 inches in the triple jump and 10.5 inches in the long jump. 

Fox brought his 110-meter hurdles time closer to his personal-best time, running the race in 17.09 seconds for eight place overall.

The Summit girls track and field team placed 14th out of 23 teams with a total of 18 points. The boys team tied for eighth place with Chaparral High School with 36 points. 

With close to three weeks until the Western Slope League meet in Grand Junction on May 5-6, the Summit track and field team is looking forward to bettering its times and getting more state qualifiers ahead of the state meet from May 18-20.

“I am definitely looking forward to state and within the next few weeks qualifying a few more relays to states,” Hagen said. “The team has been such an amazing part of the track season and I am real excited to continue on with that.”

Summit will compete in two meets this week, the Titan Invite in Colorado Springs on Thursday, April 13 and the Demon Invitational in Glenwood Springs on Saturday, April 15. Summit will then enter spring break before competing again on April 29 in Steamboat Springs.