Eric Hamer gets a celebratory moment, hoisted by Coach Kelly Christensen. Contributed photo.
While Colorado brought no teams to this year's Nike Cross Nationals event, the three individuals who represented the state made a nice outing of it.
A grassy, sometimes muddy, and generally rolling course subdued times a little, but nothing like the conditions from wetter years at Portland Meadows. In general, the sense seemed to be the Glendoveer Golf Course is a more equitable course for a national championship race than Portland Meadows.
Katie Rainsberger's race found her lingering in roughly 10th to 15th place through the first 2.5 miles. By that time, the first three places were effectively out of reach, even with the kind of surge that Rainsberger laid down at the Southwest Regional two weeks ago.
Rainsberger did, however, put on a late charge that moved her up into sixth place, with a finish time of 17:41. The sixth-place finish matches her result from 2013. Dani Jones of Arizona, whom Rainsberger twice defeated during the season, ended up as the third-place finisher behind Allie Ostrander and Paige Hofstad.
For the boys, both Paul Roberts and Eric Hamer camped out among the top 10 through early stages of the race. By one mile, Roberts had begun to fade a few places, while Hamer hung tenaciously with the lead group.
At one point, Hamer was running solidly in second, but dropped back from there as far as sixth place before retaking a couple of places late in the race to finish fourth in 15:23. To nobody's surprise, North Central's Tanner Anderson took the win in 15:11. Perhaps in a drier year this course yields a sub-15 kind of time, but not this year.
Roberts would finish 20 seconds later in 18th.
Hamer's finish is the second top-five finish from Palmer Ridge High School at NXN, the first being Spencer Wenck's fifth in a muddy 2010 race. Overall, Hamer's and Roberts' finishes come as only the fourth and fifth top-20 finishes for Colorado boys in the 11-year history of NXN.