State track: Niwot girls make it five straight

LAKEWOOD – It’s easy to brag about the Niwot girls track and field team when it comes to the distance runners. It’s a dominant, record-setting bunch that has built a foundation that allows winning a Class 4A team state championship to come so easy.

But these Cougars are far from one-dimensional, and they showed it as they rolled to 158 total points to claim their fifth team championship in a row on Saturday at Jeffco Stadium.

It’s easy to point to a standout like Addison Ritzenhein and her stack of gold medals sitting around her neck. But Niwot also came away with a pair of throwing titles and a 300-meter hurdles championship that put the range of the team’s abilities on full display.

Jade West claimed the shot put championship early in the weekend with a throw of 43 feet, 4 inches and then backed up that performance with a discus title on Saturday. Her 137-9 toss provided a sigh of relief as she checked off one of her major goals for the year.

“It’s a huge weight off my shoulders,” she said. “I’m just so happy and overjoyed.”

Reese Kasper added to the gold medal count with a time 42.23 seconds in the 300 hurdles, which put her just ahead of Montrose’s multi-event standout, Sarah McGarry.

Kasper was also on the 4×400 relay team that capped the day with a big win.

“It was really special to win the 300 hurdles but being with my best friends (in the relay) meant much more,” said Kasper, who also finished second in the 100 hurdles.

A team championship truly requires a team effort, and it was those kinds of performances from West and Kasper that the Cougars needed. Not necessarily to win the 4A team championship, but to leave no doubt for the fans in attendance that Niwot is the dominant track and field program in Colorado and it’s a title they hold near and dear to their hearts.

“Every year, we want to keep that title tradition going,” Kasper said. “We want to keep winning and this feeling is special every time. Every time you get to go out and cross the finish line, it’s special.”

And just for good measure — just to send everyone home with a reminder — the Cougars annihilated the field in the 4×400 relay to end the weekend. They came up just short of a state record but finished five seconds ahead of Longmont in the race.

This is the eighth championship in program history, which is now tied for third in state history with Akron. The Classical Academy won its 12th team title on Saturday to move into sole possession of most titles in state history.

But the Cougars can get there. This is a program steeped in a winning tradition that shows no sign of letting up anytime soon.

“I always do this. I think on Sunday, I’ll sit back and reflect,” coach Maurice Henriques said. “We started this plan in September. That’s when we started working for this.”

And each time he sees his girls raise that championship trophy, he’s reminded that the nine months of work is more than worth it.