Niwot girls take first in St. Vrain Cross Country Invitational

Homecoming week took a hit on the Niwot cross country team. According to head coach Kelly Christensen, his Cougars were far from 100% when they lined up for the St. Vrain Cross Country Invitational on Sept. 17.

But even without four top runners, the Niwot girls team squeaked out a first-place finish at Lyons High School.

An encouraging takeaway for Christensen was that a few underclassmen, on both the girls and boys’ sides, were able to keep a shorthanded Cougars team competitive. Sophomore Bella Nelson led the Niwot girls with a third-place finish (18 minutes, 39.40 seconds), just ahead of the fourth-place finisher, freshman Addison Ritzenhein (18:42.40).

The quick progression of both Nelson and Ritzenhein has been noteworthy.

“Bella didn't start off the first six, seven weeks of the season very strong, and now she's getting into shape and figuring out some things and feeling better physically,” Christensen said. “Addison, as a freshman who's never run cross country before, set the tone in the race for the rest of our girls to chase after her. You can't ask more out of a freshman that's new to the sport.”

Behind those two, senior Madison Shults finished eighth and another freshman, Avalon Beltran placed 14th.

The Niwot boys were even thinner, with Christensen estimating that about half of his varsity runners were either sick or hurt at some point during the week. Only one Niwot runner finished inside the top 10 as the Cougars took runner-up behind another one of the best cross country teams in the country, Mountain Vista. Nonetheless, Christensen’s boys expected more out of themselves.

“On the guys' side, I think they're all disappointed,” Christensen said. “I think we could have probably done a little better to try to win. But Mountain Vista, they're the defending 5A state champs and are one of the top 20 teams in the nation and they beat us. We got to figure that out and I think we will once we're healthy.”

Similar to the girls, it was a freshman runner who set the pace for Niwot. Rookie Rocco Culpepper ran a 16:04.70 to place 10th — the closest scoring freshman to him was Denver East’s Henry Bennett at 53rd.

“Rocco ran lights out,” Christensen said. “If he runs like that all year, he will be hard to beat.”

Seniors Carlos Kipkorir and Jeremy Gillett took 12th and 19th, respectively.

Despite Niwot’s low depth and the tough boys’ meet, Christensen was pleased with how his program did compared to last year’s St. Vrain Invitational.

“We ran faster than we did last year on both sides, guys and girls,” Christensen said. “Even with everything not going our way, they still found a way to perform better than they did the year before, so there's the silver lining.”

Niwot doesn’t have a meet scheduled for Sept. 24 and it comes at an opportune time with so many runners either sick or hurt. Christensen hopes to get his athletes healthy and in a better mindset with some time away from competition. But, he also has a strenuous Friday evening workout planned for his Cougars in preparation for their next meet, the Desert Twilight Invite in Mesa, Arizona on Sept. 30.