COLORADO SPRINGS –– Despite missing his sophomore season, Lyons junior Tyler Ball hit his stride at the perfect time of the 2021 campaign.
While gradually attaining a rhythm amid the initial chapter of his upperclassman tenure, Ball coasted into the 2A boys cross country championships after stealing the 2A Region 1 regional crown behind a massive personal best (16:06).
On Saturday at the Norris Penrose Event Center, Ball seamlessly translated his late-surge to the sport’s largest stage upon stealing the 2A gold medal with a winning time of 16:16.7.
“I didn’t have a cross country season last year, so I’ve just been training straight for two years,” Ball described. “And everything just kind of kicked down late this season once I kind of tapered. I won league and regionals before this, and I wasn’t even peaking then. Everything clicked at the right time for me.”
Ball bested runner-up Connor Williams of Crested Butte by a comfortable 12 seconds (16:28.7) as Ellicott senior Jodzuel Juarez stole third (16:33.3) as Heritage Christian junior Jack Nauman seized fourth-place honors (16:44.1).
In 2020, Ball fell victim to inconvenient timing during the COVID-19 pandemic before moving to Colorado thereafter. While living in New York, the junior’s previous school elected to cancel its cross country season entirely.
Nevertheless, the dedicated distance specialist continued training individually –– which paid evident dividends en route to claiming the 2A boys title as a first-ever Colorado state championship competitor.
“Today played out exactly how I expected,” Ball said. I just kind of chilled for the first two miles, and then from there, I started pulling away. It was very gratifying. I looked back, and no one was behind me. It was awesome.”
Team-wise, Heritage Christian academy defended its collective title triumphantly via tallying 54 points to edge out St. Mary’s (57) and Lyons (60).
Leading the way for the back-to-back champions beyond Nauman, Heritage Christian junior Ryan O’Loughlin (17:45.3) and senior Andrey Kutchma clocked their watches side-by-side in 46th and 47th place –– respectively.
Rounding out the veteran-laden lineup’s scorers, Eagles’ junior Luke Hermsen placed 25th (18:02.6) Elijah Vigil snatched 35th (18:24.9).
“We had basically the same team as last year and I think a lot of our success was just about pushing everybody all summer,” Nauman said. “And this group, I think was a lot closer than last year’s was. I mean, last year we had a super tight group, but this really feels like a family. I can’t even describe how good it feels to get it done again.”
