That relationship is part of the reason many suspect a certain club coach who also coaches at the high school level has been recruiting. A club coach comes in and brings with her a stud frosh class from the club team, when many of the frosh have siblings at different schools. We all know what's happening. They pushed out the old coach to make room for this.
I kind of resent the resentment though. Lots of public school coaches complain about the unfairness without bothering to build the brand. You want to compete? Start a middle school track club of your own and have a great relationship with the middle school feeder xc program. It’s the kids who can’t transfer because of CHSAA’s stupid rule that get screwed. Teachers and admin can transfer anytime they want for a better situation. Should be the same for the kids, a one time transfer for any reason.
Are some schools recruiting? Of course. Do some schools just have a brand that recruits itself? Absolutely, & that’s the key. With all of that said, I am rooting for a Rock Canyon or Fairview over a Valor. For some reason, I think Chaparral is an overlooked dark horse here.
I tend to agree with this now. I used to complain about the inequalities in high school sports in Colorado but it's just a waste of energy. In the vast majority of cases I doubt any specific CHSAA rule is broken, parents are simply looking for what they think is best for their kids.
It's a shame that this has to come up and ruin nearly every thread about Colorado high school running. We have a number of individual favorites and some teams in the mix coming from all over the state from programs that aren't typically associated with recruiting, you should at least try to celebrate that. We have an awesome competition coming up on Saturday on a great course. Hopefully all of you complaining on this thread are planning on going down and supporting our athletes this weekend, these kids are all working hard, regardless of who's coaching them.
Mountain Vista and Niwot are going to be good for a long time, just the facts of life. They have good coaches, fast kids, national success, and middle school programs. All the fast kids want to be part of a nationally ranked team, so they open enroll at their high schools. No is complaining, just try to work hard and build up a good program with a good community.
we've had all of our guys with similar 90s-2 min drops with consistent work over the last 2 seasons. What we don't have is olympic/ world championship progeny (BTW- I am not faulting Niwot or the kids. But the Sports gene is a real advantage for some schools. To ignore and pretend it's all hard work is silly
Sure, genetics are nice, even then though, or because of them, you still have many pitfalls.
The level of entitlement is huge with a large number of BoCo parents/kids, now I imagine adding talented parents into that mix must be a giant headache. If Alan had not been the coach at Fairview when Levi started there, he would have been twisted off by his lackluster running results, and freaking out on the coach.
Then there is what is probably a heinous amount of oversight, an elite parent minutely dissecting your training plans.
That relationship is part of the reason many suspect a certain club coach who also coaches at the high school level has been recruiting. A club coach comes in and brings with her a stud frosh class from the club team, when many of the frosh have siblings at different schools. We all know what's happening. They pushed out the old coach to make room for this.
I am not sure pushed out is the right characterization. Coronado had an opening because they let their last coach, Stoughton (sp?) go. The scuttlebutt is that the pro/Olympian Triathlete parent and all-around super-sports-bro Andy Potts laid into the staff over whatever BS training was going on with his kid/team.
Lets be fair, if we are going by the whole, "sport gene," position that is floating around this thread/forum, he was probably pissed that his kid was not placing top 10 as a freshman, cause, you know, "Sports Gene."
Digging through the Milesplit stats, there is no clear picture that Coronado is all that great. There may be more to it though, as a few years back, a former Coronado second stringer won Girls State XC after transferring to, lol, Niwot. One cannot make this stuff up.
Since we are now talking about Rainsberger, how many of the current Coronado line up are Kokopelli kids, before they went to Coronado? That would be interesting to know
I grew up in Colorado but have been gone for almost 20 years. The scene has changed but I am looking to move back now that my kids are approaching high school age (son and daughter). They haven’t done anything yet performance wise but will have genetics on their side.
Where would you all say is the best bang for your buck? Good coaching/ development, not too expensive.
Digging through the Milesplit stats, there is no clear picture that Coronado is all that great.
Coronado boys team has 3 solid sophs / 2 solid freshmen but no depth beyond that ready to go for 2024. So their top 5 better be on and healthy that year
Mountain Vista and Niwot are going to be good for a long time, just the facts of life. They have good coaches, fast kids, national success, and middle school programs. All the fast kids want to be part of a nationally ranked team, so they open enroll at their high schools. No is complaining, just try to work hard and build up a good program with a good community.
Niwot / Vista are definitely gonna be good for a while. Niwot could compete for an NXN title in 2 years. They have 4 seniors on varsity but look for them to be replaced by guys like Gavin E, Keegan G, and Kye T. I expected them to be contenders to make varsity this year based on track seasons, but none of them did so they will have next year to fill in. And there is looking to be no seniors on the team next year. And only 2 seniors actually scored for Niwot last meet.
Vista is always deep and has guys come out of nowhere like this year
Here are my takeaways from the boys meet. Valor was definitely not the favorite today but their 1-3 finished in the top ten and their 4-5 ran well enough to come out with the win. Several teams put their 1-5 in front of Valor’s 4-5, but Valors front runners made all the difference. Christian Groendyk comes out with the individual win, very close to Cole Sprout’s state record. Cherokee Trail, Mountain Vista, and Rock Canyon did not look good at all today. I’m really surprised that Centaurus placed 2nd today, nobody expected them to be in contention for a podium spot. I’m surprised with Fairview 3rd as well, shows that our perception of teams is often skewed based on if those teams run fast courses or not. For the girls race, Brooke Wilson becomes the first girl to run sub 17 on the state course, beating Riley Stewart’s record. She is looking good right now, definitely one of the best female runners of all time in Colorado. Air Academy girls win, no surprise there, though I didn’t think that Mtn Vista would finish as high as second.
MileSplits official Boys formatted results for the 2022 4A Colorado State Cross Country Championships, hosted by Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs CO.
But no, neither of teams are making NXN this year. Same with Valor. Or any CO boys team.
I think that Mountain View, American Fork and Herriman are all better than all of them on a good day. 2 at larges it pretty unlikely on the boys side this year. Maybe even 1 is unlikely. Zionsville almost beat a top 5 (or higher?) team Carmel today . Northwest is somewhat stacked too. Cali has 3 stud teams at least
Here are my takeaways from the boys meet. Valor was definitely not the favorite today but their 1-3 finished in the top ten and their 4-5 ran well enough to come out with the win. Several teams put their 1-5 in front of Valor’s 4-5, but Valors front runners made all the difference. Christian Groendyk comes out with the individual win, very close to Cole Sprout’s state record. Cherokee Trail, Mountain Vista, and Rock Canyon did not look good at all today. I’m really surprised that Centaurus placed 2nd today, nobody expected them to be in contention for a podium spot. I’m surprised with Fairview 3rd as well, shows that our perception of teams is often skewed based on if those teams run fast courses or not. For the girls race, Brooke Wilson becomes the first girl to run sub 17 on the state course, beating Riley Stewart’s record. She is looking good right now, definitely one of the best female runners of all time in Colorado. Air Academy girls win, no surprise there, though I didn’t think that Mtn Vista would finish as high as second.
2 nitpicks:
Parker Wolfe has the 5A/course record at 15:10.40. The top 5 boys all time now looks like:
Parker Wolfe 15:10 (2021)
Cole Sprout 15:12 (2020)
Christian Groendyk 15:13 (2022)
Zane Bergan 15:17 (2021)
Drew Costelow 15:23 (2022)
That's some pretty elite company for Groendyk: Wolfe, Sprout and Bergan all ran 8:44 or faster for the 3200 at sea level, it will be very interesting to see how his XC postseason and spring track season go.
On the girl's side Brie Oakley had the 5A/course record at 17:07.83. After today the all time girls top 5 now looks like this:
Brooke Wilson 16:59 (2022)
Brie Oakley 17:07 (2016)
Isabel Allori 17:10 (2022)
Riley Stewart 17:20 (2021)
Emma Stutsman 17:23 (2022)
Again, this is elite company for Wilson, Allori and Stutsman; Brie Oakley and Riley Stewart were basically Colorado high school legends. It should be a pretty exciting post season and spring track season for these Colorado runners.
Here are my takeaways from the boys meet. Valor was definitely not the favorite today but their 1-3 finished in the top ten and their 4-5 ran well enough to come out with the win. Several teams put their 1-5 in front of Valor’s 4-5, but Valors front runners made all the difference. Christian Groendyk comes out with the individual win, very close to Cole Sprout’s state record. Cherokee Trail, Mountain Vista, and Rock Canyon did not look good at all today. I’m really surprised that Centaurus placed 2nd today, nobody expected them to be in contention for a podium spot. I’m surprised with Fairview 3rd as well, shows that our perception of teams is often skewed based on if those teams run fast courses or not. For the girls race, Brooke Wilson becomes the first girl to run sub 17 on the state course, beating Riley Stewart’s record. She is looking good right now, definitely one of the best female runners of all time in Colorado. Air Academy girls win, no surprise there, though I didn’t think that Mtn Vista would finish as high as second.
Vista’s Benji Anderson hadn’t raced in a few weeks due to illness. Gave it a go today, but from what I understand faded from 11th to 40th over the final 400 meters (basically from the creek bed to the finish). It would have been a lot closer between them and Valor if he were healthy.
Here are my takeaways from the boys meet. Valor was definitely not the favorite today but their 1-3 finished in the top ten and their 4-5 ran well enough to come out with the win. Several teams put their 1-5 in front of Valor’s 4-5, but Valors front runners made all the difference. Christian Groendyk comes out with the individual win, very close to Cole Sprout’s state record. Cherokee Trail, Mountain Vista, and Rock Canyon did not look good at all today. I’m really surprised that Centaurus placed 2nd today, nobody expected them to be in contention for a podium spot. I’m surprised with Fairview 3rd as well, shows that our perception of teams is often skewed based on if those teams run fast courses or not. For the girls race, Brooke Wilson becomes the first girl to run sub 17 on the state course, beating Riley Stewart’s record. She is looking good right now, definitely one of the best female runners of all time in Colorado. Air Academy girls win, no surprise there, though I didn’t think that Mtn Vista would finish as high as second.
Vista’s Benji Anderson hadn’t raced in a few weeks due to illness. Gave it a go today, but from what I understand faded from 11th to 40th over the final 400 meters (basically from the creek bed to the finish). It would have been a lot closer between them and Valor if he were healthy.
If he’s healthy at NXR, Vista might finish as the number 1 CO team in the region
Is Brogan Collins from CM related to Cedar Collins (graduated last year)? This would certainly explain his movement from 21s to 18s last year to 15s this year
this is my first trip to the state meet as a coach.My initial takeaways is that the course sucks. I know some XC types like the "it's hard and this is track" mindset but that doesn't mean it has to be a trail run. A few of my runners were trapped at certain spots because the trail isn't wide enough. Start is also suspect but the finish is definitely cool .I heard this from a few coaches.
That said the race was thrilling. The boys 4A winner was a total surprise. I think Niwot will be okay at NXR (due to the course).
Niwot head coach Kelly Christensen recaps the Cougars capturing a fifth consecutive Class 4A girls team title at the Colorado High School Activities Association state cross country championship meet at Norris Penrose Events C...
Cheyenne Mountain senior Kaden Levings and sophomore Brogan Collins secured sixth and ninth place, respectively, in the Class 4A boys final at the Colorado High School Activities Association state cross country championship m...
Tyler Downs, a senior at Mountain Vista High, took third in the Class 5A boys final at the Colorado High School Activities Association state cross country championship meet at Norris Penrose Events Center in Colorado Springs....
Valor Christian senior Drew Costelow placed second, junior Dane Eike finished fourth and sophomore Kaeden Dendorfer took ninth in the Class 5A boys final at the Colorado High School Activities Association state cross country...
