LONGMONT — Braden Kram is one of the better players on the Skyline football team, but track and field has always been his first love.
Now that spring has sprung, Kram is getting to do what he enjoys most during his final semester in high school. But it’s not all fun and games, as the Falcons senior hopes to stand out in such a way this season that he can earn a late scholarship offer to continue his track career at the next level.
Kram made quite a case for himself at the Boulder County Invitational on Saturday.
Burning up the sprinting events at Everly-Montgomery Field, Kram took home three individual gold medals and scored the most team points of any male athlete on the day. For his multi-event masterpiece, Kram was awarded the Most Valuable Athlete Award.
“We’ve been going hard since football ended in November so it’s great to see all that work pay off,” Kram said. “It’s rewarding. I love football, I put my heart and soul into that, but I’ve been trying to run track in college since Day 1. The plan is to go to med school and it would be great if I could get track to help pay for the first four years.”
Totaling 24 points, Kram won the 100-meter dash in 11.45 seconds, the 200-meter dash in 23.05 seconds, and anchored the Falcons’ winning 400-meter relay team that set a school record time of 43.61 seconds.
Immediately following the successful but long day, Kram left on a road trip to visit Utah State, Southern Utah and Utah Valley to continue his tireless pursuit of a collegiate offer.
“I know that some college track coaches will wait until early July to sign their last guys, so I’m not stressed about that,” Kram said. “Hopefully I can get an offer, but this weekend will be my first interaction with colleges so hopefully it goes well.”
Though Saturday’s award at the biggest local meet of the season marked a breakout performance Kram wasn’t the only Falcons athlete who stood out. The top three male individual point-scorers – Kram, Jack Wathen and Kyle West – were Skyline athletes.
Wathen, a sophomore, cleared 6 feet, 1 inch to win the high jump and placed second in the open 400. Also a sophomore, West finished runner-up to Kram in both the 100 and 200, with times of 11.57 and 23.15, respectively. Both ran on the record-setting 400 relay team, as did Falcons junior Moses Rivera.
“It’s been good all season,” Falcons head coach James Davis said. “We’ve been building all season and we’ll continue to build through this. This is a big meet for us and we want to perform well here. We didn’t want to peak here, but we wanted to give a little more focus to our warm-ups, our preparation and our execution. We wanted to do the same thing we’ve been doing all along but also to start pulling it together and start getting ready for state.”
Brad Cochi: cochib@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/BradCochi
Boulder County Invitational
At Everly-Montgomery Field
BOYS
Team scores — 1. Monarch 132; 2. Longmont 83; 3. Skyline 78; 4. Silver Creek 76; 5. Boulder 60; 5. Niwot 60; 7. Broomfield 53; 7. Fairview 53; 9. Mead 31; 10. Centaurus 26; 11. Erie 24; 12. Lyons 19; 13. Frederick; 14. Peak to Peak 3.
100 meter dash — 1. Braden Kram, Skyline, 11.45; 2. Kyle West, Skyline, 11.57; 3. Cruz Garcia, Longmont, 11.61.
200 dash — 1. Braden Kram, Skyline, 23.05; 2. Kyle West, Skyline, 23.15; 3. Alex Santucci, Longmont, 23.45.
400 dash — 1. Cooper Harmon, Fairview, 50.72; 2. Jack Wathen, Skyline, 50.74; 3. Quintin Hyrup, Erie, 51.35.
800 run — 1. Isaac Green, Monarch, 1:53.97; 2. Will Dixon, Monarch, 1:58.08; 3. Sean Gazarik, Monarch, 1:59.62.
1,600 run — 1. Zach Litoff, Monarch, 4:22.73; 2. Charlie Perry, Monarch, 4:24.82; 3. Michael Mooney, Broomfield, 4:31.47.
3,200 run — 1. James Lee, Silver Creek, 9:50.34; 2. Logan Simington, Silver Creek, 9:50.39; 3. Kenny Lang, Niwot, 9:59.67.
110 hurdles — 1. Charley Sagrillo, Centaurus, 16.22; 2. Nate Christy, Lyons, 16.48; 3. Ryan LaVanchy, Mead, 16.66.
300 hurdles — 1. Mitchell Gorman, Broomfield, 40.31; 2. Nolan Johan, Niwot, 42.35; 3. Mack Harrington, Monarch, 42.39.
400 relay — 1. Skyline (Rivera, Wathen, West, Kram), 43.61; 2. Monarch (Gambone, Kiss, Matsumoto, Waters), 44.22; 3. Longmont (Garcia, Estrada, Willis, Paone), 44.24.
800 relay — 1. Monarch (Gambone, Matsumoto, M. Waters, T. Waters), 1:32.61; 2. Boulder (Van Bussum, De Vangel, Chopra, Travis), 1:32.74; 3. Broomfield (Gorman, Torres, Martinez, Foreman), 1:32.77.
1,600 relay — 1. Monarch, 3:26.07; 2. Longmont, 3:26.69; 3. Skyline, 3:30.14.
3,200 relay — 1. Silver Creek (Cassidy, Moroney, Dykema, Lee), 8:18.04; 2. Monarch (Gazarik, Reese, Russo, Senior), 8:18.33; 3. Niwot (Osteen, Elahi, Wells, Culpepper), 8:18.83.
Long jump — 1. Maxwell Ward, Fairview, 20-11.50; 2. Gustaf Backman, Longmont, 20-9.50; 3. Cruz Garcia, Longmont, 20-3.75.
Triple jump — 1. Trent Dykema, Silver Creek, 42-1.75; 2. Nick Paone, Longmont, 41-6.5; 3. Danny Ahern, Longmont, 41-4.25.
High jump — 1. Jack Wathen, Skyline, 6-1; 2. Peter Chopra, Boulder, 5-11; 3. Owen Koonce, Centaurus, 5-11j.
Discus — 1. Brock Knechtel, Silver Creek, 161-7; 2. Samuel Dirkes, Silver Creek, 146-2; 3. Garrett Betty, Broomfield, 145-00.
Shot put — 1. Nico Magri, Monarch, 51-8; 2. Brock Knechtel, Silver Creek, 49-5; 3. Samuel Dirkes, Silver Creek, 45-11.
Pole vault — 1. Max Manson, Monarch, 15-8; 2. Cole Rowan, Monarch, 15-2; 3. William Sternberg, Monarch, 12-8.
