5A Boys Cross Nation: Mountain Vista’s Ben Adams, Niwot Dazzle in 5A Boys State Race

COLORADO SPRINGS – Planned or unplanned, Mountain Vista’s Ben Adams and the Niwot workforce offered a jaw-dropping efficiency Saturday within the Class 5A boys state cross nation championship race.

Adams, final season’s particular person runner-up, had a plan to win his first particular person title and though the race threw him some curveballs of kinds — specifically in a problem from the Cougars’ Hunter Robbie — he prevailed with a classification report no much less on a crisp morning at Norris Penrose Event Center.

Fending off Robbie, Adams crossed the end line in quarter-hour, 3.30 seconds, to knock former teammate and 2024 champion Benjamin Anderson out of the 5A course recordbooks.

“It was such a wild race and didn’t go at all to plan,” Adams mentioned. “I didn’t go out at all how I expected and Hunter had the most awesome race I’ve seen, so it just came down to grit, not giving up when he pushed in the last mile and just being able to kick hard at the end. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

Adams relished his victory in opposition to an impressive area that included quite a lot of returning medalist from final season’s race along with some new challengers.

“It was a crazy time, but I couldn’t have run any slower and still won,” he mentioned. “The competition reflected the time and it was just such a competitive race. …Definitely getting my teammates’ course record and continuing on the legacy for Vista was big.”

Robbie, in the meantime, didn’t go into the race with a particular plan.

He is aware of every race — particularly on the state meet — has its personal stream and he dealt with it as finest he may, though he finally wasn’t in a position to take down Adams.

“I don’t know if I’m going to feel good until halfway through the race, so I don’t really plan much,” mentioned Robbie, who moved up from a sixth-place end final season. “Sometimes you feel good and you feel fit, but we never really have a plan. It’s all loose because you never know how it’s going to play out. You never know how you’re going to feel Mile 1, Mile 2, so you just have a loose race plan and have some fun.”

Coach Kelly Christensen’s Cougars — final season’s Nike Cross Nationals winner and top-ranked workforce within the nation — had every kind of enjoyable on the expense of the remainder of the sector, as they completed with a margin of victory of a whopping 113 factors to assert this system’s second straight 5A state title and fifth all-time.

Robbie was adopted by junior Quinn Sullivan in third (15:14.29) with freshman Jude Ritzenhein (15:19.37) — youthful brother of Niwot ladies star and multiple-time state champion Addison Ritzenhein — and senior Ryder Keeton (15:21.51) in sixth and seventh, respectively, and senior Gabriel Marshall in tenth (15:27.10). Robbie, Keeton and Marshall all had made the medal podium a yr in the past as nicely within the Cougars’ debut in 5A.

“We love being able to compete, so coming here and winning a title is awesome,” Robbie mentioned. “It’s so fun. We look forward to it every year.”

Fort Collins’ teammates Cadel Ruthven (fifth in an enormous climb from twenty fourth final season), a senior, and junior Sean Giles (ninth from 67th a yr in the past) received on the medal podium together with Golden sophomore Jackson Ferguson (fourth from 53rd in 2024) and ThunderRidge senior Ben Lee (eighth after a 3rd place lead to 2024).

In the workforce race, Erie (141 factors) completed in second place with assist from the tandem of consecutive finishers in senior Reid O’Brien and junior Brett Michalski in 14th and fifteenth, whereas the 152 of Castle View (led by sophomore Wyatt Dann’s twentieth place end) put it third.