COLORADO SPRINGS – Zane Bergen had a simple plan heading into the Class 4A boys cross country state championship race. He was trying to break up Cheyenne Mountian’s talented squad and create space for his Niwot teammates to fill in.
 
It was a task that proved far more difficult to accomplish than he anticipated. Any individual record or medal that he would win was secondary to the goal of winning a team title.
 
He’ll have to settle for an individual gold medal the 4A boys course record. He finished the race in 15 minutes, 17.7 seconds to claim the 4A boys cross country championship, his second in a row. It was, in part, a goal of his but only because it was essential to the team accomplishing its primary goal heading into the event. 
 
“Going in, we wanted the team title and that’s it,” Bergen said. “Getting the individual title was a by-product of trying to score the least amount of points for the team as possible. It’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to execute on that bigger goal but I’m happy that I took home the individual so that we can light some fires with the other boys on the team and make them chase some aspirations that will feed into the future generations of Niwot.”
 
The next three runners to cross the finish line were from Cheyenne Mountain which lifted the Red-Tailed Hawks to the team championship. Erik Le Roux, Kaden Levings and Knox Exton crossed in a rapid succession, fully aware of what the implications were.
 
All of them finished the race in under 15:41, a remarkable feat for any cross country team in any season.
 
After finishing second as team in last year’s race, the Hawks felt the elation of claiming gold this time around. 
 
“It’s all about the process,” Le Roux said. “This whole season has been a blast and it’s been a pleasure to work with these boys.”
 
Like Bergen, the Hawks weren’t necessarily interested in an individual title. It was only to the extent that it would help them claim the team championship. The second the gun fired, signaling the start of the race, the plan was fairly simple. They knew that if they ran together, they would achieve their desired result together.
 
“Our team strategy was to stay together, be smart and just do our best,” Knox said. “We didn’t want to psych ourselves out. We wanted to run our own races and run them well. And I think we performed pretty well.”
 
Overall, the Hawks had six runners finish in the top 14. Niwot had Carlos Kipkorir Cheruiyot finished eighth and Joey Hendershot finish ninth, but it wasn’t enough to keep pace with the collective run that Cheyenne Mountian put together.
 
“They’re a really good team this year,” Bergen said. “I love them to death. They’re all awesome boys. They’re super nice. They just had the better race today.”
 
Perhaps they did as a group, but for future state meets, runners will be taking aim at the number that Bergen put up at the Norris Penrose Event Center.