Air Academy star Katie Rainsberger was named the national girls cross country runner of the year by Gatorade on Thursday.
She is the first national honoree in girls cross country from Colorado since the award was created in 2007.
Rainsberger, who won the award for Colorado for the second time last week, set the course record in winning the Class 4A championship in the fall when she finished in 17:39. Along with the individual win, she helped the Kadets win the 4A team title.
A senior, she is signed to run at Oregon.
“Despite Katie’s remarkable talent, she’s humble and puts her team before herself,” said Air Academy coach Steve Rischling in a statement. “She is a once-in-a-career runner, but she’s still a better person than she is a runner.”
After the high school season, Rainsberger won the Nike Cross Nationals Final. She also won the NXN Southwest Regional title.
“Success doesn’t happen over night but, instead, through layers of consistent, positive training,” Rainsberger told Gatorade. “Working hard and having fun are the keys that will lead to the greatest enjoyment and longevity.”
Rainsberger continues the trend of Colorado athletes to be honored with national awards. Last spring, Mountain Vista’s Mallory Pugh was named the national girls soccer player of the year. That followed Lewis-Palmer’s Alexa Smith being named the national volleyball player of the year by MaxPreps.
Katie Rainsberger, who set a course record in winning the Class 4A championship in the fall, was named the state’s girls cross country runner of the year by Gatorade on Thursday.
This is the second straight year in which Rainsberger has won the award, joining Niwot’s Elise Cranny (2013-14) and Boulder’s Kelsey Lakowske (2009-10) as the only other multiple winners.
Rainsberger carries a 4.49 weighted GPA, and helped the Kadets win the team title as well with her course record of 17:39.
“Individual titles are great,” Rainsberger told CHSAANow.com last October, “but when you are working with a team and for a team, it means all the more.”
After the Colorado season, Rainsberger won the Nike Cross Nationals individual championship, as well as the NXN Southwest Regional title.
“Despite Katie’s remarkable talent, she’s humble and puts her team before herself,” Air Academy coach Steve Rischling said in a statement from Gatorade. “She is a once-in-a-career runner, but she’s still a better person than she is a runner.”
Rainsberger, a senior, has signed with Oregon.
She now becomes a finalist for the national award, which will be announced next week.
COLORADO SPRINGS — In a tradition-rich state for distance running, becoming a legend takes plenty of state titles and, just as important to a legacy of that magnitude, plenty of dominance.
The all-time great girls, the Melody Fairchild’s, the Megan Kaltenbach’s, the Rebekah McDowell’s, the Elise Cranny’s, they’ve all had one thing in common. Not only have they won and won a lot, but they’ve had an aura of invincibility about them. When the greats toe the starting line, they command respect.
Well, Katie Rainsberger, a senior dynamo on any type of cross country course and in a number of disciplines on the track, has that aura to her.
Sure, winning back-to-back individual Class 4A state championships, which she did Saturday at the Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs, helps. Claiming the distance triple crown—state titles in the 800 meters, the 1,600, and the 3,200, not to mention anchoring the winning 3,200 relay for Air Academy last spring—also helps.
(Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
Still, despite accomplishing just about everything there is to be accomplished state-wide, Rainsberger was missing one award for her trophy case. That is, until Saturday morning when the future Oregon Duck, with the help of four teammates in Paige Embaugh (freshman, 5th), Maria Mettler (junior, 10th), MacKenzie Moss (freshman, 14th), and Kayla Wiitala (senior, 30th), won their first girls cross country state championship in school history.
“I am so excited. It’s my senior year and that’s all I could have asked for,” Rainsberger said of the team title. “I don’t even have words right now.”
For all the senior has achieved in her high school career—she is one of the very best in Colorado history—she said winning with her teammates was something extra special.
“I think that is the highlight of my high school career. Individual titles are great, but when you are working with a team and for a team, it means all the more.”
Individually, she ran 17:38, the top time of the day by 35 seconds over 4A runner-up Kayla Young of Denver North (18:13) and, as one of the favorites to win the Nike national championship coming up, has plenty of individual pursuits ahead in high school and beyond. But for Rainsberger, nothing was sweeter than a team title.
[divider]
Class 5A:
(Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
Another all-time great, Lauren Gregory of Fort Collins, entered Saturday with two state championships under her belt. And she’s only a junior. With that, she did feel an added amount of pressure to keep her run as the 5A queen alive.
“There was a lot more hype this year and the self-imposed pressure of not losing the streak,” Gregory said. “Our coach says, ‘clear mind, clear mind,’ and I had to remember that.”
The Lambkin, another of the country’s finest runners, was going against a crazy talented 5A field that included Grandview’s Brie Oakley, Legend’s Catherine Liggett and Mountain Vista’s Allie Chipman. After winning by huge margins each of the previous two state meets, Gregory gapped the others by a few seconds and then held on for the win over Oakley, 18:15 to 18:17.
“That was the hardest I’ve had to work,” she said. “This was such a harder race, because everyone was on their A-game.”
Gregory will have a chance at becoming one of the only four-time cross country champions in state history next year.
As for the team race, the Broomfield Eagles claimed their first-ever girls state title with 112 points, a narrow eight point margin of victory over Cherry Creek. Fairview was third with 124.
Emily Mitchem (8th place), Ivy Gonzales (18th), Katelyn Mitchem (19th), McKenzie Gaines (23rd), and Alena Valdez (44th) was the scoring five for the Eagles, a program with plenty of distance running success over the years, but now a team title on top of it.
[divider]
Class 3A:
(Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
This race ended with some fascinating finishes, both individually and team-wise.
Peak to Peak had two freshmen, Quinn McConnell and Anna Shults, place first and second. On a side note, McConnell, already a high school state champion, also won the middle school state meet last year. Her time Saturday was 18:41, nine seconds clear of Shults.
Obviously with the top-two finishers in the race, the Pumas seemed bound to fare well in the team standings. They ended up with 56 points and were second.
Salida, after a uniform incident a season ago, non-identical singlets, led to the Spartans only being allowed five competitors instead of the usual seven, Salida had a measure of redemption Saturday as they won the team crown with 50 points. It was their second state title in the past three years after finishing as runner-up to Alamosa by a mere four points in 2014.
Sydney Fesenmeyer (6th place), Taryn Ceglowski (7th), Phoebe Powell (8th), Cecilia Kastner (10th), and Bari Beasley (19th) led the way for the Spartans.
[divider]
Class 2A:
(Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
Much like the 3A race, except this time it was twin sisters, the same team had the individual state champion and runner-up.
Heritage Christian seniors Rachel (19:55) and Rebekah Rairdon (20:05) fended off Telluride’s Soleil Gaylord (20:09) in a tight top-three battle.
In a bit of a surprise though, Telluride, with Maya Ordonez coming in sixth and Larkin Brodie coming in seventh, tallied 16 points, good enough for a three point margin of victory over Heritage Christian. Carrying on with the theme of the day, the Miners also won their first-ever state championship in girls cross country.
And, Telluride will return all three scorers from their winning effort as Gaylord is only a sophomore, Ordonez a freshman, and Brodie a junior.
Reed was also fourth in the 1,600-meter race at the 4A state track meet, and sixth in the 3,200.
She’s an all-around athlete, and has played basketball for D’Evelyn. In fact, she averaged 13.2 points, 5.8 rebounds and 5.3 assists last season.
Reed also played singles in the state tennis tournament her freshman and sophomore years for the Jaguars, but stopped last spring in order to focus on track.
Reed will sign on the upcoming Nov. 11 national signing date.
She is the latest member of the Class of 2016 to make her college choice.
Salida’s Taylor Stack won the boys race at the Arapahoe Warrior Invite. (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
LITTLETON — Not so long ago, the Salida girls cross country team finished an emotionally charged state meet as the Class 3A runner-up.
While a second place showing was extremely solid, in some ways the result was a bitter one after a uniform incident — non-identical singlets — resulted in only five girls, not seven, toeing the line. The defending champion Spartans were inched out for the state crown in 2014 by Alamosa, 91-95.
“When something like that happens, it’s just tough,” Salida coach Ken Wilcox said. “Fortunately for a lot of our girls, they were back for another year. We have an opportunity to take something that wasn’t so positive and make it a real positive. I’ve always thought great challenges present great opportunities.”
Salida’s Taylor Stack. (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
On Friday afternoon at DeKoevend Park in Littleton, site of the traditionally competitive Arapahoe Warrior Invite, Salida took advantage of such an opportunity. Senior Taylor Stack won the boys race, as he and his teammates placed fourth in a 30-team field, and the Salida girls finished as runner-up to 5A favorites Cherry Creek.
In an invite comprised of almost all 4A and 5A schools, the Spartans made a statement in their season debut.
“One of the beautiful things about cross country is you get the opportunity to run against some of the bigger dogs,” Wilcox said. “We are a school of about 300 and obviously there’s a lot of schools here that are much bigger than that. It’s just fun for us. It’s low pressure.”
On a true cross country course with a water crossing and a few gently rolling hills, Stack ran away from big-school stars — Alec Hornecker of Golden, Steven Goldy of Arapahoe, and Luc Hagen of Air Academy — in winning with a time of 16 minutes, 13 seconds. Hornecker was next in 16:20, then Goldy (16:25) and Hagen (16:49).
It was an impressive start to an eye-opening afternoon for the Spartans as all six of Stack’s teammates broke 19 minutes. A year ago on the same course, only three managed sub-19 performances for the eventual sixth place team in 3A.
“In the time we’ve been coming to Arapahoe, I have to feel that’s easily the highest our guys have placed without a doubt,” Wilcox said excitedly.
Seth Minor, Russell Orris, Kaden Sites, and Morgan Fitzgerald filled out the scoring five for a Salida team that had 215 points, fourth place behind only 5A schools Cherry Creek (132), Rock Canyon (128), and Arapahoe (64), the champions at their home course. The Spartan boys are ranked No. 6 in 3A by Milesplit.
Then, Taryn Ceglowski (6th place), Phoebe Powell, Bari Beasley, Sydney Fesenmeyer, and Olivia Lowe racked up 152 points in beating 5A No. 8 Pine Creek (157) and 4A No. 6 Palmer Ridge (171).
Cherry Creek’s Devon Peterson and Poudre’s Luna Slater. (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
The girls, ranked No. 1 in 3A, were only defeated by Creek (64). The Bruins rode first- and third-place finishes by Devon Peterson and Lillian Markusch to a crown.
In a meet with most big schools racing their full lineups, but some, notably Mountain Vista boys and girls and Palmer Ridge boys, holding out top runners, Salida seized an opportunity to display the strength of not only their program, but small school distance running overall.
“It’s always fun to come to a bigger meet like this and be one of the only 3A schools,” Stack said.
“It’s always our goal to kind of mix things up a little bit and make some noise for smaller schools.”
“I think as a small school sometimes it’s easy to have small dreams,” Wilcox added. “We don’t want to have small dreams. We want to shoot a little higher than that.”
