Colorado Boys brought the speed at this weekend's biggest regional meets: the Desert Twilight XC Festival in Arizona and the Rim Rock Farm High School Cross Country Classic in Kansas.
At Desert Twilight, Coronado High School Senior Oliver Horton finished in second place with a time of 14:31.60 as Colorado's top finisher in the Sweepstakes division, just a second behind El Paso Eastwood's Noah Garcia. Jude Ritzenhein, the sophomore from Niwot High School also placed 6th as the top finishing underclassman in the Sweepstakes division with a time of 14:49.80.
Overall, Colorado runners made up six of the top 10 finishers in the Sweepstakes division including: Horton (2nd), Senior Quinn Sullivan of Niwot (3rd), Senior Jay McDonald of Summit High School (5th), Ritzenhein (6th), Junior Will Johns of Fort Collins High School (7th), and Senior Sean Giles of Fort Collins High School (10th)
In the team rankings, Niwot boys took first place with 87 points for the 4th year in a row at the Desert Twilight meet. In a MileSplit interview, Niwot head coach Kelly Christensen said part of the team’s strategy for this race was to familiarize themselves with the course ahead of the NXR Southwest meet in November, where the Niwot boys won last year under the REAL Training banner. Niwot boys also took second place in the Championship division at the Desert Twilight meet with most of their underclassmen, suggesting their dominance will continue over the coming years.
At Rim Rock Farm, Kansas University Cross Country's home course, Colorado teams including Valor Christian High School, Pueblo West High School, and Denver East High School all put up solid performances against top talent from Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas, and more.
Despite the muddy and rainy conditions on an already challenging course, Valor's Junior and top runner Lucas Santos took 4th place with a time of 16:05.16 as Colorado's top performer, while East's Sophomore Liam Gerber placed 27th and Pueblo West's Senior Coda Deulen followed in 40th with times of 17:04.30 and 17:24.73 respectively.
With just five weeks left in the season, this weekend's out of state performances suggest a battle is brewing back home in Colorado when many of these top teams and athletes will face each other at the state championship meet in Colorado Springs at the end of October.