COLORADO SPRINGS – Despite being one of the favorites to challenge for the Class 2A boys title, Colorado Springs Christian junior Andrew Bel entered Saturday’s state championships with a shockingly low number of wins in his high school career.

That number was one. And that had only recently come the week before at regionals. Well, Bel’s second career high school victory was a big one.

On the course at Norris Penrose Event Center, Bel finished first overall with a time of 16 minutes, 16.6 seconds.

“It was so awesome. It was just a joy,” Bel said. “Right now, I’ve only got two high school wins – last week at regionals and today. For my second high school win to be a state championship is just amazing. It’s super exciting to come out here and win.”

Bel, who placed ninth last season as a sophomore, led the race at the one-mile and two-mile marks. He held off a late charge from Lyons runner Sage Wynja, who finished with a time of 16:23.8 to place second despite entering the race ranked 13th.

“I knew that I was faster than the rankings said,” Wynja said. “We’re always running the courses that are more challenging, so in MileSplit we’re going to be lower. But I know what I’m capable of. I have my confidence and I was ready to roll today. I knew what was up.

“Confidence is really big for me in cross. This is my sport. This is what I’m best at. It’s a lot of fun to be here and run fast.”

Golden View Classical won the team title with a score of 42. Banning Lewis Preparatory, which finished runner-up to Golden View at the 2A Region 2 meet, was runner-up again with a score of 85. Wiggins was third at 88.

Junior Bobby Kiesewetter led the way for Golden View, placing third with a time of 16:24.1, just 0.3 seconds behind Wynja.

“It’s utterly amazing,” Kiesewetter said. “We had two kind of rough state seasons where we had guys who were sick and we were struggling with injury. This year, we all just knew what we needed to do, we stayed healthy, we all focused on our individual race, negative-splitting and we just put it all out there on the field.”

Golden View senior Yosef Heldt (16:38.5) was fourth individually. Strasburg sophomore Dawit James (16:39.3) placed fifth. James also placed fifth as a freshman last season and now has two top-five finishes.