Niwot cross country crushing it

GIRLS XC

Look out Colorado, Niwot’s Addison Ritzenhein is a runaway freight train with no slowing down in sight. The sophomore picked up speed on the final downhill stretch and steamed through the finish line Saturday at the St. Vrain Cross Country Invitational, leaving all competitors far behind while crushing the girls’ course record along the way.

In her second race of the season, Ritzenhein picked up her second victory, this time by a whopping 30 seconds over teammate and second-place finisher Olivia Alessandrini, who added the silver medal to her third-place run the week before at the RE-1J District meet.

Even more impressive for Ritzenhein, last year’s runner-up in the 4A state championship meet as a freshman, was her crushing of the St. Vrain course record by 14 seconds, a record that had stood since 2011. The winning time of 17:36.9 was only the fourth occurrence in the event’s history that a girl was able to slip under the 18-minute mark.

The Cougar girls just missed making a clean sweep of the top three spots with senior Mia Prok adding a fourth-place finish, seven seconds behind the third-place finisher, Peyton Adams of Mountain Vista. Niwot sophomore Avalon Beltran (6th) and senior Sarah Perkins (10th) added top 10 finishes to help their team to an impressive victory over the 19-team field.

In the combined 5A and 4A invitational, the Cougars showed that they can compete at any level in the state, bettering top-ranked 5A teams from Mountain Vista (2nd ranked), Fossil Ridge (No. 4), and Denver East (No. 6) in the top four team finishes. The nearest 4A competition came from the team from Erie which finished in seventh place overall.

BOYS XC

Not to be outdone by the girls’ team dominance, the Niwot boys also took on some of the top schools in both Class 5A and Class 4A and ran away with the team victory. The Cougars (47 points) ran past the top runners from 5A Fairview (69), 5A Mountain Vista (105) and 4A Thompson Valley (113) for the victory in the 22-team invitational.

Sophomore Rocco Culpepper led the Cougars with a fifth-place finish, six seconds ahead of teammate Quinn Sullivan, who crossed the line in eighth place. Quinn, a freshman, narrowly edged out junior teammate Christopher Wood. Quinn’s margin was just two-tenths of a second over his teammate.

Sophomore Hunter Robbie and junior Evan Kear completed the course in 11th place and 14th place, respectively, in a field that saw 200 runners post finishing times.

The Cougar boys and girls will be back in action against many of the top 4A and 5A teams on Saturday, Sept. 30, at the Pat Patten Invitational, hosted by Boulder High School.