State Meet Did-You-Knows

2010 individual titles for Kelsey Lakowske and Samantha Berggren piled onto an already-established trend in Colorado high school cross country. Read on to see what that trend is. Colorado Track XC file photos by Alan Versaw.

Did you know...

  • Boys state cross country has been with us here in Colorado since 1951, and girls state cross country has been with us since 1978.
  • This is the ninth time in the last 13 years that state cross country has been held in Colorado Springs. Between Colorado Springs and a very large number of years in Pueblo, the state cross country meet has definitely tilted toward southern Colorado over time.
  • Lyons (boys) and Mountain Vista (boys) hold the current longest strings of consecutive state team titles at three each. There's a very good chance both make it four on Saturday.
  • The state cross country meet has been scheduled for the last Saturday in October for time out of memory, and it has occasionally fallen victim to a snow postponement. The most epic of those snow postponements was in Pueblo in 1997. The other two most recent postponements were 1984 and 2009.
  • The make-up race in 1984 was more road race than cross country, taking place in and near the parking lots of Jeffco Stadium.
  • Air Academy's girls are favored to take 4A girls, but Air Academy has never before won a state cross country title. Rather, they share the all-time record for close-but-no-cigar at state with five seconds and no firsts at the state meet. Pagosa Springs is the other school sharing that distinction.
  • Colorado high school cross country had two classifications until 1990, when the classification scheme went 6A, 5A, and A-4A. It stayed that way in 1991, then went to 6A, 5A, 4A, A-3A in 1992 and 1993. From 1994 through 2007. Since that time, it has been 5A, 4A, 3A, and 2A.
  • Lake County's 28 (combined) state cross country titles easily tops the all-time list for the state. It has been, however, 19 years since the last Lake County state title. And, it will go to 20 next year since Lake County did not qualify a team this year.
  • Teams wearing purple have historically done especially well at state. There is a lot of state cross country titles, both team and individual, accumulated between Estes Park, Fort Collins, West Grand, Bayfield, Fort Collins, Lake County, Boulder, Salida, Mountain View, and Middle Park.
  • You can shake hands with four coaches at this year's state meet who've won state titles at more than one school--Doug Hugill, Greg Weich, Mike Callor, and Larry Zaragoza. Zaragoza, however, is the only one to win both boys and girls titles at both schools.