COLORADO SPRINGS — When the gun sounded on the first race of the state cross country championships Saturday, Kaitlin Hanenburg was supposed to be in front of the pack.
To Hanenburg’s surprise, she still was chasing Middle Park freshman Sam Berggren.
“I wasn’t expecting her to be ahead, but my coach had told me how he wanted me to run and so I stuck to that plan and it worked,” said Hanenburg, a sophomore at The Classical Academy.
Hanenburg needed less than a mile to reel in Berggren and keep her at bay on a cold morning at El Pomar Sports Complex to win the Class 3A individual title with a time of 18 minutes, 42.9 seconds.
Berggren enjoyed a comfortable cruise into second place with a time of 19:37.9, good enough for a 23-second cushion over third place. Berggren said she hoped to run under the 19-minute mark.
Hanenburg’s finish, combined with the third-place finish of teammate Emily Husted (20:00.5) and Kassie Mazzocco’s seventh place (20:09.8), propelled the Titans to their fifth straight team title with 22 points – not bad for a school that began competing in 2001.
Titans junior Kelsey Brown was 17th (20:51.6) and freshman Elena Roy placed 23rd (21:04.5).
Although she admitted it was hard to breathe in the 40-degree weather, Husted said her only concern was running her fastest, not which runners were ahead or behind her.
“I was just going to go out and run my race and see who all I could pass,” Husted said.
On Husted’s heels in fourth place was Crested Butte senior Emma Coburn, who was two seconds back with a time of 20:02.0. Basalt’s Annette Stenstadvold and Chiara Del Piccolo placed fifth and sixth (20:03.1 and 20:03.3).
Peak to Peak placed second in the team race behind an 11th-place finish by junior Jhenya Nahreini. Roosevelt was third as Heidi Lee finished eighth with a time of 20:17.1. Crested Butte was fourth with a team score of 134.
