Colorado State Meet

Cole Sprout Wins Third Title; Arapahoe Girls Run To Big Upset Victory

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Cole Sprout won his third Colorado state cross country title Saturday by running four seconds faster than he did last year at Norris-Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs. 

Sprout, a senior at Valor Christian, ran 15 minutes, 12.7 seconds on the 5-kilometer course and pulled away from fellow Nike Elite camper Connor Ohlson of Dakota Ridge by 12 seconds after the first mile.

INTERVIEWS 

Ohlson's team won the Class 5A championship with 67 points and put three runners in the top seven to secure the program's second straight title and third in program history.

Arapahoe pulled off a big upset to claim its first 5A girls title, beating US#6 Cherry Creek by 30 points, 69-99. No. 13 Cherokee Trail was third with 157 points and No. 5 Mountain Vista was fourth with 167. 

Cherry Creek's Riley Stewart won the race in 18:12.3. 

Arapahoe had placers 6 and 7 in freshmen Ava Escorcia (18:44.1) and Ava Mitchell (18:44.4). The Warriors finished 11 points behind Cherry Creek at their regional meet nine days earlier.

Cruz Culpepper of Niwot surged late to pull away from Thompson Valley's Dylan Schubert and win the 4A boys final, 15:36.1 to 15:48.5. Culpepper eclipsed the classification record of 15:42.1 set in 2017 by Sprout.

Niwot put five scorers in the top 27 to come away with its first title with 70 points.

Samrawit Dishon's 4A girls victory in 18:11.9 made it a sweep for Niwot, the first time in program history the Cougars captured both individual and team titles in the same day. 

Mason Norman of the Classical Academy won his third consecutive 3A boys title in 15:50.8 for a massive 37-second margin. However, Frontier Academy beat Classical in the team scoring, 77 to 89, for its first team title since 2013.

Sierra Bower of Basalt improved from a 24th-place finish in 20:12 last season to not only win the 3A girls title, but set a classification record of 18:00.1, the fastest female performance of the meet. Sawyer Wilson (18:44.5) and Kennedy McDonald (19:04.5) placed second and fifth to help Classical Academy add to its state record with a 12th team championship. 

The Lyons boys and girls both won Class 2A titles to earn the program's first sweep since 2014. The girls went 1-3-5, led by winner sophomore Quin Gregg, who ran 19:24.9. Senior Isaac Roberts won the boys race in 16:19.6, following in the footsteps of older brothers Andrew (2007) and Paul (2012-15).  

Team Champions - RESULTS MERGE

Class 5A - Dakota Ridge boys 67 points, Arapahoe girls 69 points - RESULTS 

Class 4A - Niwot boys 70 points, Niwot girls 37 points - RESULTS

Class 3A - Frontier Academy boys 77 points, Classical Academy girls 50 points. - RESULTS

Class 2A/1A - Lyons boys 14 points, Lyons girls 9 points - RESULTS (score three)