COLORADO SPRINGS >> Three years into her high school career, no bar seems to be too high for Niwot’s Addison Ritzenhein, no triumph insurmountable.

Everybody was chasing her during her first two years in Class 4A, and 5A was no different on Saturday morning during the cross country state championships at the Norris Penrose Event Center. When she raised her hands with a smile at the finish line, she knew she made Colorado history — again.

This time, she set the girls’ course record at 16 minutes, 54.7 seconds, shaving five seconds off the mark that Valor Christian’s Brooke Wilson achieved just two years earlier. The feat, however, paled in comparison to her national title at Nike Cross Nationals last year, which earned her the Gatorade National Girls Cross Country Player of the Year award. She set the 4A course record as a sophomore.

Just add it to the list.

“It’s so incredibly special,” Ritzenhein said. “All the people, all the athletes from Colorado are just so strong. Watching Brooke set that record, that just shows how strong Colorado runners are, especially female runners in general. I think it’s such a special thing to keep adding on to that, and hopefully it provides inspiration to younger female athletes.”

The race featured five of the top 18 girls teams in the nation — according to MileSplit’s COROS CC rankings — with Mountain Vista leading the way at No. 2, followed by No. 6 Air Academy, No. 14 Niwot, No. 16 Chaparral and No. 18 Fossil Ridge. When it came to Colorado’s biggest stage, Mountain Vista beat out the Kadets (101 points) for the team title (63) as Fossil Ridge nabbed third (108), Chaparral finished fourth (132) and Niwot secured fifth (160).

The higher classification provided the extra challenge that Ritzenhein had lacked in previous years, but no common bystander would have known that on Saturday. She beat out the rest of the field by 27 seconds.

“Racing against these girls, they’re all so strong,” Ritzenhein said. “It’s such a deep field. (It’s) just having that huge variety of competitors with different strengths. Some people, they go out hard. Some people like to close. Some people like to stay steady. I think just having that good variety was very different than 4A. I mean, 4A was still very, very competitive, but I think it’s just in terms of different competitors in the race.”

As her junior season comes to a close, Ritzenhein has college at the forefront of her mind. She said that at the moment, she’s narrowed down her choices to North Carolina State or Northern Arizona University.

An hour later, the Niwot boys’ squad attained the team championship that it’d been chasing all year long. Led by junior Ryder Keeton’s fourth place (15:32.3), the Cougars scored a 44, well ahead of state runner-up Valor Christian (87).

Juniors Hunter Robbie (sixth, 15:34.0) and Gabriel Marshall (eighth, 15:44.9) joined him on top of the podium. Keeton had never finished in the top 10 before.

“It’s wonderful,” Keeton said. “I’m pretty sure we had confidence from the start. I mean, we looked at all the combined results from the last couple years, and we knew we’d still be able to hold our own in 5A. (Niwot has) just a great environment for running. Culturally, and with the coaches, and it’s a great place to be. We always have a great time, so I think that helps us stay consistent.”

Speeding toward silver

When Silver Creek senior Cloe Ruth made the turn into the stadium, she trailed just inches behind Timnath’s Izzy Schimmelpfennig. She knew she had to kick it if she wanted to nab the silver in the 4A girls’ race.

She had just enough juice left in the tank to beat out Schimmelpfennig by 0.2 seconds, earning her own time of 18:18.2 to trail only the state champion, Summit’s Ella Hagen (Hagen won by nearly 48 seconds). She didn’t know who crossed the finish line first.

“She passed me with probably like 600 (meters) to go and that 600 is my bad spot, where I’m like, ‘Oh crap, it’s over,’” Ruth said. “That’s where I normally put in the last 101%. When she passed me, part of me was like, ‘Just let it happen.’ Third is still amazing, obviously.”

The sunny, warm temperatures provided quite the contrast from last year’s freezing affair, when she ended her race just off of the podium. That disappointment helped frame her training throughout the offseason so she could excel in her final high school race.

“I just didn’t have a good race overall, because it was really cold or something,” Ruth recalled. “It wasn’t the best day for me and I got 11th. That was a little heartbreaking because the (year before), I got 10th and it felt like a big setback.

“This year, I’ve been a lot more mentally in the game. I’ve enjoyed every day that I’m running. Last year, I was a little different because I hated that (state meet) race, and so I just had to remind myself why I’m running. It’s not to get 10th place. It’s just because I love to run.”

Anything can happen in the trees

As Holy Family senior Anabella Descalzo made her way through the NPEC course, the announcer’s voice kept ringing in her ears. She knew that if she wanted any shot at a podium finish, she’d have to tap into her better nature.

“I think I was making it up a little bit in, like, the first mile or the second mile on the downhill, but I would say most of it came from the trees kind of area,” Descalzo explained. “My coach (Isaiah Remington) always says, ‘Anything can happen in the trees.’ Every time I enter the trees, I think, ‘OK, is something going to happen to me, or am I going to make that something happen?’”

When everything was said and done, she placed eighth in the 4A race with a 19:10.9 mark. She smiled brightly in the top-10 chute, adorned in purple glitter with the names of all of her teammates written on her legs.

Everything she had been chasing this year had come to fruition.

“It’s my senior year, and I just wanted to run for my team because I love them so much and I’m the only senior on the team,” she said. “I kind of feel like I’m in charge of all of them. It’s kind of a way to run for something, so it’s not like you’re alone out there. It’s just a way to feel like you have them with you even when they’re not directly by your side.

“Honestly, I was just really tired (afterward), so I wanted water, but it was exciting. I didn’t know if I was going to get it this year — top 10, I mean. I had really wanted it, but at the start of the race, I felt like I was hearing, ‘30th, 25th.’ So I was like, ‘Oh, I got a lot of ground to make up if I want to make top 10. I was surprised a little bit, but also I was grateful because I really wanted to be top-10 for my last year.”

She led the Tigers to fourth place as a team and a score of 147.