Niwot boys capture second straight Class 4A state title

Coming into the final 100 meters of the 2020 Class 4A state cross country race, Niwot junior Zane Bergen decided it was time to make his move. He was trailing leader Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos by a few steps, but he knew he had enough kick left to overtake the Green Mountain senior before the finish line. Unfortunately, the Green Mountain senior seemed to have other ideas.

"I decided I'm going to go on the outside and get around him, but I guess I picked the wrong outside," Bergen said, describing the finish of the Oct. 17 race in Colorado Springs. "He kind of forced me up into the fencing, and I had to choose either running into the fence or falling down, and I fell down."

Bergen quickly regained his footing, but it was too late to catch Tuohy-Gaydos, who crossed the finish line first with the time of 15 minutes 26 seconds. Bleeding from a scrape on his shoulder, Bergen followed just three seconds later, but thought his runner-up status might get an upgrade.

"I knew I had to get up and finish for the team, because that was the only thing that mattered," he said. "I knew it was going to be questionable about whether that was legal or not, so I just made sure that I got my case across. And it turned out really well."

Bergen was awarded the 2020 Class 4A state title after officials from the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) disqualified Tuohy-Gaydos for impeding Bergen's path. His time of 15:29 also broke the Norris Penrose record of 15:36, set by his former teammate Cruz Culpepper in 2019. But more importantly for the junior, his dramatic win helped propel the Cougars to their second straight Class 4A boys team title, the prize Bergen and his teammates have had their eyes on all along.

"Honestly this individual title means nothing," Bergen said. "It's the team title that means everything, because it shows that we've been putting in work for six, seven, eight months. Ever since the beginning of quarantine, we've been working our butts off, and it's really showed. I'm so happy about today."

Unlike in the individual race, the winner of the 2020 team competition was never in dispute. Four of Bergen's teammates were less than a minute behind him, putting five Cougars among the top 20 finishers, and three among the top 10: senior Grayden Rauba was fourth overall, with a time of 15:42, followed by Curtis Volf (15:51) in seventh, senior Joaquin Herrera (16:11) in 14th, and junior Joey Hendershot (16:22) in19th. Sophomore Carlos Kipkorir (17:06) finished in 47th. Niwot ended the race with just 36 team points in the team standings, the lowest Class 4A boys score in at least 20 years. Nevertheless, Cougars head coach Kelly Christensen admitted afterwards that he had been "super nervous" as he watched his team battle on the course.

"There's so many different ways to look at the race with the wave starts," the coach said. "So it worked out how we thought it would, but it got a little scary there at the end when Joey's legs gave out on him. I think he went from 10th to 19th in the last 1600 meters, and started running the wrong way. But that's just what this course does to one or two of your runners."

The challenging Norris Penrose course was also likely a factor in the dust-up between Bergen and Tuohy-Gaydos at the finish, Christensen said, adding that he wasn't too surprised by the "completely wild" finish.

"We go over that a lot-knowing that once you get to the creek, there's going to be a lot of drama between the creek and the finish line, and sure enough... The endorphins are going, you're at the end of the race, and you're about to win, and you go into that fight or flight mode, and for Grahm it turned into the fight...[but] you can't impede a runner's progress at any point, especially at the finish line. I'm sure he's disappointed because, again, it's not like they rehearsed that, it just happened in the moment. It's a hard life lesson to learn."

Nor was Christensen surprised by Bergen's record-breaking time or his ability to defend Culpepper's individual title. Echoing Bergen, Christensen said it's been clear the junior has been on a championship path for several months, and seeing him execute was immensely gratifying.

"It's pretty cool. When I was going through it last night with Coach Blum I asked, 'Do you think Zane could run 15:35,' and both of our reactions were 'that's fast, but he can totally run what Cruz ran on a good day'...Obviously, you can talk about it, and you know what the training is, and you know the will power and what kind of mental toughness a kid like Zane has, but he still has to do it, and we felt Zane has been on that trajectory since May."

Indeed, despite all the drama and nervous moments, there wasn't much surprising about the day to Christensen and his assistants, including the repeat team title. He said that even without key members of the 2019 squad, Culpepper most notably, the boys team has maintained the camaraderie and strict work ethic that created those earlier championships in the first place.

"They do everything together, and they're super tight, and part of that is what Cruz left behind last year...They could look at the work he was doing and the results he was getting and think, 'let's put in the work and get what he got'."

For Bergen, that "team mentality" has been the key to the Cougars' 2020 success, and promises to take them even further.

"We have really grown together as a team but it's really like a family. We work for each other and that's it. We don't work for ourselves, and we don't work for anybody else. It's just for the betterment of each other... It's a real bummer that we are not going to be able to show off on the national level, because I'm really confident that we could have gone up in the national rankings and shown that we are one of the best teams in the country."

For full results visit Colorado MileSplit. Watch video of the Class 4A finish here (skip to 30:30).

See more photos here.