Barnes, Riddell score in long, high jump 

Pit or path, sand or straightaway, Maci Barnes made her final CHSAA Track & Field Championships as memorable as possible. 

Representing Ignacio High School in three events at the 2024 season’s May 16-18 grand finale, Barnes exited Jeffco Stadium having logged the Lady Bobcats’ best result and having earned two of the squad’s three team points – which ultimately landed Ignacio in a tie with Westcliffe-based Custer County and Fairplay South Park for 34th place in Class 2A. 

At the top of the classification’s girls’ standings with 131 accumulated points, Timnath won the 2022-reopened school’s first team title in any sport, and first since ‘old’ Timnath (1919-60) copped the 1953 Championships’ Class B Boys’ crown. Fort Collins Heritage Christian Academy (66 points) came in second and Greeley Dayspring Christian Academy (55.5) third, while Wiggins (42) and Cedaredge (42) tied for fourth. 

Entered in both horizontal jumping events, Barnes placed eighth in the long jump with a 15-foot, 6.25-inch maximum, but finished just 15th in the triple (31’2.75”). Pueblo West-based Swallows Charter Academy senior Kaitlyn Pearson and Sedgwick County (Julesburg/Ovid Revere) sophomore Lainee Nein finished 1-2 in the former – leaping 16’9”, and 16’1” respectively – while in the latter first place went to DCA senior Eboselulu Omofoma (35’11.75”) and second to Nein (35’2.5”). 

Going vertical, sophomore Samantha Riddell placed ninth in the high jump with a peak 4’10” clearance – nine inches lower than Omofoma’s winner – but her placing had to be determined by number of attempts required to scale the height, as she was one of eight competitors unable to go higher. Barnes finished 11th in the 800-meter run, clocking 2:27.37, and senior Darlyn Mendoza-Lechuga placed 12th in the 300m hurdles’ preliminaries after finishing in 50.61 seconds. 

Timnath junior Natalie Washburn won the 800 in 2:17.88; sophomore Sara Christensen of Colorado Springs-based Thomas MacLaren School paced the hurdlers through the specialty’s prelims with her 47.13, but slipped to second in the finals as her accelerated 45.75 trailed THS soph Addison Geraets’ time at the finish line by exactly one-tenth of a tick.