Boys Cross Country

Colorado’s last major in-state invitational of the season ran last weekend. But, there’s still a major out-of-state invitational to be run.

For a few fortunate teams, Crested Butte was the place to be on Saturday. The elevation may have bit a tad on the side of high, but the views and cool fall air likely more than made up for it. 

Any meet that was going to run this weekend has now done it’s thing. I won’t have a lot to say about every meet that happened this weekend, but it’s certainly time to glean what highlights we can.

You all know that the St. Vrain Invitational runs in two divisions, a 2A/3A division and a 4A/5A division. That, of course, leaves some questions unanswered. I’m going to try to answer at least most of those questions here.

Of all the stories being told here today, the 3A story is probably the most interesting. That’s because a significant chunk of 3A split off and ran in the 4A/5A races today at St. Vrain. On account of this, it’s fascinating to see how those who “ran up” fit into the picture when all of 3A is put back together again.

It would have been a reasonable expectation going in that Niwot would have dominated today’s St. Vrain Invitational, at least at the 4A level and maybe for the whole meet. That ended up being close to, but not exactly like, what happened.

The really big picture story is that Niwot’s girls edged Mountain Vista, while Mountain Vista’s boys edged Niwot. Whether that’s a net victory for Mountain Vista or not probably depends a lot on the perspective from which you read things.

BROOMFIELD — A few small changes can go a long way in high school cross country.

Finishing at the top in her very first season as a high school runner, Vanguard’s Nadhia Campos sure has a pretty big target on her back within the Class 2A girls cross country scene.

Having scored just 26 points at last year’s Class 4A State Championships, the Cheyenne Mountain Red-Tailed Hawks boys cross country team put together one of the most dominant meets any classification has seen in recent years.