Two decades ago, Daggett was at the beginning of his tenure as The Classical Academy’s head track and field coach. It was long before the Titans became an irrefutable force every May at the Colorado state meet at Jeffco Stadium. Their 22 combined state championships between the girls and boys teams are second all-time, only to Fountain-Fort Carson and Mullen.

The night before the 2006 state meet — which sparked a five-peat by the Titans girls, and featured freshmen boys on that team which would go on to capture TCA’s first title on that side in ’09 — Daggett memorized Brooks’ speech as seen in the 2004 movie “Miracle.” In the film, Kurt Russell delivers before Team USA’s upset of the Soviet Union on the way to the 1980 Olympic gold medal.

But Daggett’s rendition of the speech to his team during a dinner at his house was track-and-field-themed, and he incorporated references to TCA and its rivals into his delivery.

“To be 100% honest, at the time I didn’t know where (the speech) came from,” recalled , a senior on that ’06 team and longtime TCA assistant coach, with a laugh. “But even though I didn’t know in the moment it was from ‘Miracle,’ that moment showed us all how much (Daggett) cared. How much he truly believed. And when I look back, that was the seed that planted something truly special.”

TCA extended its state record with a 14th girls title on Saturday at Jeffco Stadium, cruising to the crown by 47 points. The Titan boys, which three-peated from 2023-25 to push their championship tally to eight, finished runner-up to Coal Ridge.

Strong pipeline, big numbers

This weekend’s performance has become routine for TCA, that is also a force in cross-country. The Titans’ 27 combined titles in that sport (17 girls, 10 boys) are second in Colorado history, only to Lake County.

Cross-country’s success and the crossover between athletes in that fall sport and spring’s track and field helped jump-start the latter’s rise in relevance.

“At the beginning, cross country was definitely a little bit ahead of track,” Daggett explained. “There’s no question that distance has been a huge boon for the track team. But we couldn’t start to win titles without some help (in other events) — when I could finally start to fill in some sprint relays and other spots. But we actually won a couple of titles early on without any field event points.”

TCA’s cross-country team was long led by , who, like Daggett, built his dynasty from scratch. Before retiring in 2021, he led TCA to 21 cross-country titles and was a longtime distance coach for Daggett’s track teams. The two coaches became best friends, and when Versaw retired, Daggett found another close buddy in Matt Norton, who stepped into Versaw’s roles on both teams.

With those three leading the charge, running has become a popular pursuit at TCA. The Titans’ high school — TCA also features three elementary schools and a junior high across multiple campuses — has 636 students this school year, according to . Of those, 140 kids competed in track and field this year, meaning 22% of the school is in Daggett’s program.

“Imagine if Cherry Creek had a fifth of their kids out for track,” Matt Norton said with a laugh. “It would be a small army (of about 828 kids).”

To maintain those participation numbers annually, Daggett recruits the hallways of TCA. He pitches a motto that “the best athletes in the school meet on the track,” and with himself, Norton, and Hanenburg, all teachers at the school, they have the time and opportunity to convince any kid who will listen.

That sales pitch is essential to keeping TCA’s talent pipeline stocked. Unlike dynasties in other CHSAA sports that are fueled by the combination of open enrollment by ninth graders, move-ins to the district ahead of high school, or transfers, the vast majority of TCA’s athletes have been at the school since kindergarten because Versaw explains, “the wait list is enormous to get into TCA.”

“We often have the best football players, the best volleyball players, the best basketball players, and the best guys soccer players all on the track team,” Daggett added. “They tend to gravitate to us as a second sport, sometimes as a third sport. And from there, we work to develop them.”

A youth track-and-field pipeline has also proved critical.

TCA molds young prospects through the which goes through sixth grade. After that, TCA’s junior high track and field program is helmed by Michael Pollard, whom Norton says “gets a jillion kids out and tries them in a bunch of different events.”

“Our kids have been exposed to running and competing in track for a long time by people who care and do it lovingly and do it appropriately so that by the time they get to high school, we can take the next logical step and give them a real structured training plan and a lot of experience on how to race and how to compete,” Norton said. “The kids benefit from that quite a bit.”

A new challenge in Class 4A

Throughout TCA’s unstoppable run, Daggett has found the perfect blend of intensity, community and individualized attention.

“Early on, Tim had a reputation that he would never smile,” Versaw said with a laugh. “I mean, he did smile occasionally. But despite that, the kids realized that Tim was totally invested in their success. Even though kids kidded that they would go to other coaches if they needed a smile at a particular moment, when Tim saw kids investing to become better, they had no bigger advocate than him.

“… He has the same intensity now, but it has softened over the years. He does show those emotions more, and (the intensity) has become more transparent, more worn on the sleeve.”

Through that seriousness, Daggett knows how to remind his athletes for whom they are training.

In a sport where personal records are guideposts, he is sure to remind the Titans that their solo efforts are all for the greater prosperity of the program. A couple of times a week, usually at the beginning of practice, Daggett filters across his various event groups and poses a single question: Who do you run for? Who do you jump for? Who do you hurdle for? Who do you vault for? Who do you throw for?

“And each time, all the kids all say back to him, ‘Each other,'” Hanenburg says. “He also reminds the kids that selfish athletes celebrate alone. That anytime anyone accomplishes something during a meet, it’s because we’ve all worked together and everyone has a piece in what we’re doing.”

Daggett goes to great lengths to ensure the future of his program. TCA’s JV athletes also feel that inclusion. He makes sure every athlete in the program has at least one event to compete in, down to the most unskilled kid on JV. And while he goes out of his way to nurture the Titan underclassmen, he also makes a point to see that his seniors have a proper send-off each season.

That moment occurred earlier this week, on Tuesday, when Daggett completed his annual ritual of greeting every senior athlete as they walked off the TCA track for the final time of their high school careers. For the girls’ captain, sprinter Whitney Meister, that gesture was all the more important considering the senior didn’t achieve the times she was hoping for this spring after injury issues slowed her progress.

“That moment just off the edge of the track just builds on the person he is and the coach he is,” Meister explained. “He takes time for each of us and shows that he cares, and is with us every step of the way. Even with the big picture always in mind (of chasing team titles), to have his encouragement and him by my side was really special.

“It really helps me realize it’s more than a sport. It’s more than your performance. Your times and your marks, even in a great program like ours, do not define you. Obviously, he’s there for me as an athlete, but he cares more about who I am and who I’ve become.”

Now, the question is what TCA track and field will become in its next chapter.

Because of a play-up rule that will go into effect for the next two-year cycle beginning in 2026-27, TCA will be required to move up to Class 4A. This is because both the girls and boys have won championships three out of the last four years, and in the most recent season (this one), both teams finished in the top four.

TCA previously proved it could be competitive in 4A, when the girls won the state title in 2016 in that classification and the boys were state runner-up the year before that.

“We’ll continue to be good in 4A, but the more important thing to us is, I think a lot of people view TCA in a really positive light in terms of the impact we’ve made in track and cross-country,” Norton said. “We try to be good stewards of the sport and be good friends to our competitors. … (With all that said), I don’t know of anybody else that’s had the run that TCA has had.”

That was the difference in last year’s Class 5A girls 100-meter dash final, where — 11.75 seconds to Smith’s 11.76.

On Saturday morning at Jeffco Stadium, the Fossil Ridge senior made good on her promise to finish her prep career as Colorado’s fastest female, surging past Welling and the seven other runners on the track. She was uncatchable once she hit top speed, breaking away in the final 20 meters to . Welling took second in 11.78, while Denver South senior Mariame Marico was third in 12:03.

“That really pushed me and motivated me,” Smith said after being swarmed by teammates in the finish area. “Every day when I wanted to just lie in my bed, I was like, ‘No, this is the goal.’ And I kept my mind on it. And all of my family and my friends were there to support me through it. Just being able to come out and get my goal, it����ap been so relieving and exciting.”

, with Smith winning in 23.81 and Welling taking the silver in 24.13.

Welling, a junior who also beat Smith in the 200 last year, will get another crack at both titles in 2027. But she said she’ll miss the friendly rivalry she shared with Smith, who is committed to running at Oregon State next year.

“I’m really sad this is the last time I get to race her,” Welling said. “I love racing her because I feel like when we race, either one of us can get it, and I love that. Obviously, I’m sad for not getting the win. But I can’t be mad about it, because she ran insane times today … It����ap bittersweet that this is the last time.”

Smith would have faced a tighter . She was just 3 hundredths faster than Sierra senior Suraiya Payne, who won the 4A crown in 11:63 ahead of Holy Family senior Claire Tannehill in 11.64.

After falling short of her goals last year, Smith said she had to learn not to rush to become faster. It sounds counterintuitive, but she had the ideal coach to help her.

Fossil Ridge is led by , who still holds the record for the fastest 100-meter dash ever run in Colorado. When Bozmans clocked 10.27 at an April meet during his senior year in 2012, it was a time that no other high school sprinter in the country beat that year.

Bozmans went on to race at TCU, where he was a three-time All-American in relay events despite being hampered by an array of injuries.

Seeing Smith run down the same titles as he did on Saturday, Bozmans said nervous anticipation quickly gave way to joy.

“I see how hard she works. And oftentimes she reminds me a lot of myself,” he said. “Just the way she runs and that effort. You don’t see it too often here, but when we go to practice, she’s about her business.”

That business included scrutinizing every aspect of Smith’s form and her approach. A long strider, Smith said she had to learn “not to rush things and fully go through the process of acceleration.”

“Just with my build, it����ap always been the beginning of the race that I’m either right there or just a little bit behind,” she said. “I’m not the strongest, and I don’t have the biggest build when it comes to explosiveness, but definitely, top-end speed is what helps me.”

“When Addy gets up and going, there’s nobody else that can run with her,” Bozmans said. “It����ap like, we just have to get there. And once we get there, we’ve just gotta hold onto it.”

Smith also competes in the long jump and took fourth in this year’s final. The 100 has been her best event in high school, but with her long legs, she said the 200 could become her signature event in college. Bozmans hopes she continues to run relay legs as well.

As for who would win a foot race between Colorado’s fastest female and the coach who held that title among the state’s fastest boys 14 years ago?

“I think I’d still get her,” Bozmans said. “But it����ap getting more interesting — that����ap for sure.”

Roxy’s perfect run

Cheyenne Wells’ Roxy Unruh was smiling and crying after setting a new 1A record in the 200 with a time of 25.58. For Unruh, the race marked her final sprint in a four-year run during which she never lost in either the 100- or 200-meter final at state.

“It����ap unreal,” said Unruh, an 11-time state champion who will run next year at the Colorado School of Mines. “I just started running track because I love the people, and these girls, they’re the reason I come out for track every year, to see these guys and run with them every year. Getting to win is just a bonus.”

This was reassuring. And the memory of 2025’s 3200-meter final has faded, from Reuter’s memory. But she still remembers, of course. And remembered, heading into Thursday’s state championships.

“What if,” she couldn’t help thinking, “I do it again?”

Reuter, now a junior and flagship member of Eaton High’s track program, had never once in her track career accidentally stepped outside a lane. Mistakes happen. This one was history-altering, in a way. In last year’s girls’ 3A 3200-meter state championship, she lined up and believed she saw an official gesture she could cut in at Lane 4. She only cut in at Lane 5. Reuter finished the race, glanced at the scoreboard, and found out she and five other runners had suddenly been disqualified.

That moment was a mess, she remembers, of confusion. Pure shock. Not enough, though, to override her own moral compass. Alamosa’s Elizabeth McQuitty, that race’s de facto winner, burst into tears that May day and offered Reuter the 3A 3200 medal. Reuter refused.

A year later, she returned to Jeffco and seized it, fair and square.

“Felt like I have a cleanness,” Reuter said Friday. “A clean slate.”

The only competition, on Thursday night, was herself, an ascending figure in Colorado youth distance running. Reuter claimed the gold medal with a time of 10:41:95 — more than 30 full seconds faster than the second-place finisher. She began a smidge tentative, motoring through the first 200 meters before reaching the cut-line. She calculated, in the moment, when she officially passed it. No DQ again.

And then she turned on the burners and officially wrote her name where it should’ve been in 2025.

“When she crossed the finish line and seeing her, like, collapse on the ground, I knew it����ap like – ‘OK, she’s good,'” said Eaton assistant and distance coach Jessica Ruff. “‘She has accomplished what she needs to.’”

Last year, Reuter’s mother, Sarah, didn’t believe the disqualification was true at first. She questioned whether officials could simply slap her daughter with a penalty, rather than remove her altogether from the result. Any emotions simmered, though, with Reuter’s calm reaction — and McQuitty’s generosity.

“Honestly, so much good came from what seemed like misfortune last year,” Sarah said.

A day after that 3200-meter debacle, the now-graduated McQuitty and Alamosa’s coach gave Ruff a hug after Reuter won the girls’ 3A 1600-meter last year. Reuter deserved it, they told Ruff. Pure, unadulterated sportsmanship won that weekend, over any youth-sports egos.

And on Thursday, McQuitty and her parents were in attendance to watch Reuter’s 3200-meter redemption. They texted after the win, mother Sarah said, to congratulate her. Full-circle, Sarah said.

“It was heartbreaking,” Ruff reflected. “But I was so glad that this year she got that — she won the two laps. I think it was just that redemption that she needed, because she worked so hard.

“So for her to finally get that title after what happened last year, and just kinda move on from it – and she didn’t dwell on it at all – like, I was really proud of her.”

A true surprise in 5A

A good few minutes after the boys’ 5A 800-meter finished Friday, Broomfield senior Andrew Heuton climbed to the center podium and put his hands over his head. And kept them there. This was not fatigue.

He had run this race, in truth, with absolutely no confidence he could win.

“Yeah, I truly had no expectations of myself whatsoever,” Heuton said, visibly bewildered. “I thought I was going to get ninth or eighth. I saw I got moved to second (in seeding). I’m like, ‘Yeah, that����ap not right. I shouldn’t be there. I don’t deserve that spot.’ I didn’t feel like I deserved where I was.

“And I did.”

Heuten, then a junior, finished a distant 10th in the boys’ 5A 800-meter in 2025. Then saw multiple stress fractures wipe out his entire cross-country season this fall. He began the track season running times that wouldn’t even sniff the bottom of the state pack. His own coach at Broomfield, as Heuten recalled, told him he wouldn’t have it in 2026 and they’d be happy if he even made it to state.

Instead, Heuten took the gold with a time of 1:52:30 to unseat the 2025 champion, ThunderRidge’s Ben Lee.

“I was like, ‘Hey, this guy is one of the best runners in Colorado history,'” Heuten said of Lee, post-race. “He’s insane. He’s amazing, he’s a great runner. Like, the nicest dude I’ve ever talked to. And I just thought he was going to win. I really did. Especially from last year, and his win last year.

“And like, I just really believed, heart of hearts that he was going to beat me,” Heuten continued, a few words later. “And I didn’t want it to happen. And I didn’t let it happen.”

From spectating to state records

Exactly a year ago, Summit junior Jay McDonald stood along the infield and watched the boys’ 800, 1600 and 3200-meter races at Jeffco pass him by. Injuries wiped out any hope of making state fields, and any potential qualifying times dropped.

“It’s been a huge motivation,” McDonald reflected, “this year.”

And on Friday, a kid who wasn’t even in the field sped to history at Jeffco: a state-record time of 1:48:64 in the boys’ 5A 800-meter.

McDonald unseated Niwot junior Quinn Sullivan, who entered the field as the easy top seed.

“We’ve been going back and forth since freshman year,” McDonald said. “And he’s one of the guys that — that’s why you show up to practice every day, to compete like athletes like him.”

Lutheran’s first-year head coach was a sprinting wunderkind in the 1990s. He set at Benjamin Franklin High School in Rochester, New York, and ran track and played wideout at Michigan State. His speed led him to the Olympics, where he was a 400-meter relay alternate for the Team USA at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Then came the unraveling — real-life troubles that ended his competitive career, but also led Stafford to a fresh path and a new calling in coaching.

“I was very immature as a young athlete, because all I knew was sports,” Stafford said. “As much as I brag about having great coaches, they weren’t always tapping into the person that I was becoming. And not because they didn’t want to. It’s because I was being a knucklehead.

“I was making dumb decisions, especially my junior year at Michigan State, where I didn’t take things seriously. I couldn’t get rid of my childhood friends. I wanted an entourage. I’d go home and wanted to be around the streets. I wasn’t actually living the life of the athlete that I was becoming.”

At that time, Stafford was getting into trouble with his old friends in New York. Some of them sold drugs, some of them were in gangs. And despite Stafford’s potential on the track and the gridiron — he would eventually go on to a brief NFL stint on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ practice squad — he couldn’t escape the pull of the friends he surrounded himself with until it was too late.

Stafford, a Kentucky native who won a 400-meter high school track title in that state as an eighth grader, spent most of his formative years in inner-city Rochester, where poverty was rampant, and violence was omnipresent. When he was 13, he was shot in the bicep one day when he was playing basketball at the park and he was caught in the crossfire of a shootout. The ripple effect of being raised in that environment was tough to escape, even after he went to Michigan State, but he would still come back to Rochester for the summers.

“I had one close call where I wasn’t arrested, but I was detained,” Stafford recalled. “It was a scare factor for me where I started to change. But, ultimately, it took me away from athletics because nobody would touch me. People knew I had this entourage around me, and I just wasn’t waking up.

“It was like a where everyone loved Pacman, but as soon as he plays (on Sunday), everybody goes, ‘Will we see him at practice on Monday? What’s he going to do this weekend?’ And I had that perception around me.”

A different track

At the turn of the century, Stafford got the wake-up call that altered his life.

One of his close friends was murdered in Rochester, a loss that Stafford says “changed everything for me.” At 21, he got his first coaching job, working with sprinters in the Flower City Track Club in Rochester, the same club where he first emerged as a star.

“From that point on, that’s when I buckled down,” Stafford said. “I started to work on my dreams of being a coach. … (My mindset was), ‘I’m going to take advantage of the things that I built in my name.’ I knew I had a resume. I knew I could walk into a place and talk about what I was as a track athlete, or the opportunities I had as a football player. I played for Nick Saban at Michigan State. I had all that going for me.

“So I sat down, and just like you would do with a PR firm, I put a plan together and said, ‘Let’s clean up.'”

That zag led Stafford into a lifetime of coaching.

Before he coached at Fairview. He served as Lutheran’s sprint coach for 12 years, with a stint at Valor Christian in between, before getting the Lions’ head job in January. Stafford has big shoes to fill following the retirement of , who stepped away due to health issues after establishing the Lions as a perennial force.

During Horan’s tenure, Lutheran won seven boys state titles and one girls state title, and would’ve surely won another boys and girls crown with loaded teams in 2020 had the state meet not been canceled due to the pandemic.

In Stafford’s first year as a Lutheran assistant in 2013, he guided to Class 2A titles in the 100- and 200-meters. The next year, the start of Lutheran’s championship run, the Lions boys qualified five sprinters in the 200-meter finals. For Darwin Horan, those two success stories were clear proof of Stafford’s ability to translate his own world-class speed to the youth he coached.

“We’ve won a lot of titles since ’14, but we’re such a sprint-dominated school. Our distance teams have traditionally been mediocre, but our sprint teams have been wicked, and Jermaine deserves a lot of credit for that,” Horan said. “When we had five kids of the nine finalists (in the 200 in 2014), I looked at that and went, ‘OK, he must be a pretty good coach. Every kid I’ve got in the 200 is in the final.'”

‘We’re looking to create life habits’

Stafford has a tall task ahead of him to get the Lions back to that level of dominance.

Because of the 1.5-enrollment multiplier rule for private schools  Lutheran track and field will move up to Class 5A for the next two-year cycle beginning in 2027. The Lions were young this season, with about 70 underclassmen in a 110-kid program, and qualified 15 athletes for this weekend’s CHSAA state track and field meet.

One of those is senior sprinter , a Colorado School of Mines commit who has worked with Stafford for several years. He’s heard stories about Stafford’s storied track background and about what it was like to play football for Saban. And Stafford’s expertise in starts has drastically improved Sola’s performance out of the blocks.

But Sola says more importantly, Stafford “has really helped me grow as a person off the track.”

“He’s really helped me in my faith in Christ,” Sola said. “And no matter the outcome on the track, his experiences in the sport and in life has pushed (me and my teammates) to become the best people we can.”

With the move up to Colorado’s biggest classification, Stafford says his goal is “not to be able to compare with other 5A teams, but just to continue to build a program with those numbers and see what ultimately happens.” Stafford, who is also the facility director and a performance coach for the training center desires success for his program, but his ultimate ambition is much broader than that.

The 51-year-old hopes every athlete in his program graduates with the maturity that he lacked as a phenom sprinter all those years ago. Stafford is still physically cut and looks like he could get out on the track and beat most of this weekend’s sprinters at Jeffco Stadium. But what he wants his Lions to realize most are the life lessons he learned the hard way.

“We want to set our kids up to do something that’s 40 years long, not just four years long (like a college scholarship would be),” Stafford said. “That’s my vision with Lutheran. We’re looking to create life habits where it’s going to be more than just a sport, it’s a lifestyle, and what they take from our program is going to help them succeed in life.”

She waited for the last 300 to make her move.

When there’s nothing in sight except open space, the feeling can be aimless. Disquieting.

The Heritage High School senior finds it far more comforting to stare down a target — a reminder of why she does this.

“For me,” Schwalm said, “it����ap mostly that I’m so competitive, and I love races.”

Her competitiveness has taken her to unpredictable places. After taking up singing as a hobby, she once applied to the Denver School of the Arts. Not because she wanted to enroll. “She just wanted to make it,” said her mom, Kara. “And check that box.” She did make it. That was enough.

It guided her to a late-blooming career as arguably the best high school distance runner in Colorado. She didn’t dream of cross-country stardom and Division I offers when she was younger. She didn’t spend hours training to become a state champ. She lived next to Heritage in Littleton and decided to wander into the cross-country team’s summer training program before her freshman year, motivated by memories of her endurance as a soccer midfielder and curious whether she was good enough to hang. Soon, she was running with the varsity girls.

“She would always come from dive practice to our workouts in the evening that summer,” her friend and teammate Caroline Fender said. “It was pretty funny how she wasn’t fully bought into it yet.”

“I don’t think this talent was at all something that I expected,” Schwalm said. Her surprise was only eclipsed by her parents’ — they never could’ve guessed she would fall in love with the sport.

On Thursday, her competitiveness dropped her into the final lap of the 3,200 with ground to make up. It was all part of the plan. Before the race, her mom had reminded her to breathe out there. High stakes could mean high anxiety. But Kara was practically hyperventilating from the pre-race nerves as she offered the advice. “She looked at me, like, you breathe.” This was Emry’s domain. She turned on the jets late and decisively pulled away from Cherokee Trail freshman Madison Lange, who won two titles at Adidas Track Nationals last summer.

Lange’s got next in CHSAA Class 5A, but this was Schwalm’s moment — a three-second victory at 10 minutes, 26.19 seconds. She was just as delighted to see Fender finish sixth.

“I think one of my strengths in racing is definitely once I hit a pace, being able to stay at that pace,” Schwalm said. “So for me, it was mostly just finding that front of the pack and following their lead. Taking whatever pace they were taking it at. Because then I knew that I wasn’t going to be (in a position) where I’m having to push my own pace. So for that last 300, that����ap where it came down to: This is my race now.”

It’s taking her to Wake Forest next. For most of her recruitment, she had the University of Alabama penciled in as her decision. But a weekend visit to Wake’s campus in Winston-Salem, N.C., last October sold her on the smaller school, which still competes in the ACC.

“First day we landed, she had to go do a run,” her dad, Eddie, recalled. “And she came back and was like, ‘That might’ve been the prettiest run I’ve ever done in my entire life.’ So that was a good start.”

By the time he picked her up from the dormitory where she was staying at 6 a.m. that Sunday morning — they had an early flight home — she didn’t even wait for him to ask what she thought of the place. “This is it,” she said. She committed the next day. She plans to major in kinesiology and exercise science.

“Seeing how the teammates interacted and the environment they created,” Schwalm said, “it was the most fun and supportive place I’ve ever been.”

There was unfinished business back home first. She finished fourth place in the 3,200 last year. As she accelerated down the final straightaway toward a triumphant ending to her Heritage career, her dad tried to sprint 200 meters down the concourse, alongside her.

“I was nervous I was gonna hit somebody,” Eddie said. “but I couldn’t help it.”

He ran honorably, but he couldn’t catch the ponytail in front of him.

Eaglecrest senior Cameron Bell won the Class 5A long jump on Thursday morning at the , then his teammate Zenobia Witt claimed the girls title in the event in the afternoon. Both wins came in dominating fashion, as Bell won his first title by 11.5 inches and the junior Witt, battling injury, triumphed for her third straight championship by 14.25 inches.

The dual eye-popping performance was a culmination of a lifetime in the event for Witt, a season of breakthroughs for Bell, and consistent camaraderie and competition between the two long jumpers.

“They have what I’d like to call the things that you can’t really coach, which is the want to,” Eaglecrest long jump coach Everett Bible said. “They know how to make very minute adjustments from jump to jump. They’re very cognizant of what their body’s doing. And they just know how to compete.

“What’s different about them is Zenobia has a very long history in track, especially in the jumps. Cameron is a little bit new to it, as he’s mainly a football player who has been a sponge to the technique that we work on. But the camaraderie between them has been there for several years and having that competitive nature between them also helps.”

Bell, a standout safety on the gridiron, is signed to Witt, who has Division I interest in track and field but hasn’t committed yet, was a flag football star for the Raptors. The linebacker in the fall.

Both athletes are also elite hurdlers, Bell in the 110- and 300-meter hurdles, and Witt in the 100- and 300-meter hurdles. And while Witt has been doing long jump since she was seven, Bell started in the event as a sophomore. He didn’t qualify for state that year, then placed third as a junior.

The huge leap for Bell — figuratively and literally — came this season. He set a new with a mark of 24-feet, 8.25-inches at the Stutler Twilight meet on April 23.

“The record came on my last jump in the finals (at Stutler Twilight),” Bell said. “I felt great, and I had just ran my first sub-14 (seconds) in the 110 hurdles. I started a clap (with the crowd), and my adrenaline was through the roof. Right after I jumped, I thought I had tied the record. But they did three more measurements and I beat it by a quarter of an inch.

“It was big moment, a crazy moment, and when I realized I broke it, (the gravity of the accomplishment) hit me all at once.”

While Bell was having a record-setting spring, Witt was on the mend. She hurt herself at New Balance Indoor Nationals in the offseason, an avulsion fracture in her left pelvis, and only recently returned to competition. She jumped in two meets prior to state, and on Thursday, elected not to jump in three of her six total chances as her ankle was also bothering her.

It was no matter, as she jumped 19-feet, 3.25-inches to easy beat runner-up Taylor Speir of Columbine, who jumped 18-feet, 1-inch. Bell also cruised to a win, jumping 24-feet to win by nearly a foot over his teammate, runner-up Bryson States, who jumped 23-feet, 0.5-inches.

While Bell is now weighing whether to also do track and field for the ThunderWolves in addition to football, Witt plans on continuing to heal her hip as she prepares for New Balance Outdoor Nationals in Philadelphia in June. And she has big plans to join Bell in

Her current PR in the outdoor long jump 20-feet, 2-inches, and the Colorado state record is 21-feet, .75-inches by Montbello’s Chelsea Taylor in 2005. Witt believes that with a healthy senior year, she can easily surpass that mark.

“I want the state record,” Witt said. “I need it. I’ve got to have it.”

The was struggling with performance anxiety throughout last season and into this one. But after talking with a sports psychologist, Bergstrom started employing a “box of control.”

“I just draw a little box (in black Sharpie) on the bottom of my left wrist, and it reminds me to focus on what I’m able to control and not what other people are doing or what other people are thinking,” Bergstrom said. “Last year and even at the start of this one, I was stressing out at every single meet, and I kind of stopped enjoying the sport because I was putting so much pressure on myself. I was focused only on the number.

“But the box really helped me change my mindset, so I started enjoying pole vault more and just having a lot more fun with the sport. By being free from worrying about results, I got better.”

With that new approach, Bergstrom won the Class 5A pole vault title on Thursday morning at the 2026 CHSAA state track and field championships at Jeffco Stadium. Her personal best was 13-feet, 5-inches coming into the meet — a mark that ranks — but she only needed to jump 12-feet, 7-inches to win on Thursday over runner-up Madison Shirley-Holzhauer of Castle View.

Bergstrom’s showing came with plenty of smiles and a bubbly, competitive attitude that her teammates have come to love this spring.

“If she was a color, she’d be like the color yellow,” Cherry Creek high jumper Luke Saville said. “She’s super fun to be around when she’s in her zone, just having a good time while also still going out and executing at a really high level.”

Thursday’s gold was the payoff following last season’s heartbreak at state, when, as a junior, Bergstrom finished third and narrowly missed out on the title.

She and three other girls, including champion Sienna Boughen of Castle View, all jumped 12-feet, 1-inch. But because Boughen had the least amount of misses, she won the title, while Bergstrom — who narrowly missed a jump for 12-feet, 7-inches that would’ve clinched her first — settled for bronze.

Bergstrom competed all throughout last year with an ailing knee, a season after she was sidelined at state due to a stress fracture in her foot. The foot injury occurred during gymnastics and was worsened by pushing through it during track and field practices and meets. So after the injury issues of the last two seasons, Bergstrom says her ascent to the title in 2026 was underscored by “listening to my body more.”

“I find it really difficult to rest and take breaks,” Bergstrom said. “But coming up just short of the state title last year helped me realize that rest is equally as important as training. So, that really helped. Plus, coming so close and the disappointment (of third) fueled my fire more. It made me realize that pole vaulting is something I could actually pursue in college.”

Bergstrom quit gymnastics ahead of her junior year to focus on track full-time, and her consistent improvement in her jumps over the past two seasons led to a college commitment to UC San Diego. But Cherry Creek pole vault coach David Ladd says the skills and athleticism from her old sport still translate.

“Oftentimes, what happens with the female vaulters, a lot of them ,” Ladd said. “Some of the best pole vaulters, they are gymnasts who get too tall (like Bergstrom at 5-foot-8). Once you’re in the air, you’re a gymnast. So it is an advantage.

“I often joke that my number one job coaching elite girls high school pole vaulters is to get them to quit gymnastics.”

While Bergstrom’s strength and agility were on full display on Thursday, she also demonstrated her pure finesse last year at state — off the track, and behind Jeffco Stadium’s east bleachers.

There, each year the U.S. Army sets up a recruiting station with a pull-up bar to entice the hordes of athletes who walk by to take on the Army recruiter in a pull-up contest. Bergstrom accepted the challenge and promptly beat the older male recruiter, rapping out 18 pull-ups while the recruiter could muster only 15.

Call it an omen for the accomplishment that Bergstrom pulled off on Thursday, sprinting down the runway and flying through the air to assert herself as the top pole vaulter in Colorado.

“My family and friends who were there watching the pull-up contest, they kept saying they weren’t surprised I was able to beat him,” Bergstrom said. “But that (feat is a good example) of what I’m capable of when I’m having fun and people are cheering me on. … That really helped me realize that challenging myself mentally and physically is just a lot of fun, especially when I’m not worried about the outcome and I’m staying in my box of control.”

Next up for Bergstrom is competing for the Slovakian national team this summer. Bergstrom, whose mother is from Slovakia, will pole vault at a meet in Germany in June, followed by the World Athletics U20 Championships at historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., in August.

Legend’s last call

Niwot senior Addison Ritzenhein will run her final high school races this weekend. Ritzenhein, the Northern Arizona-bound distance superstar with a plethora of cross-country and track titles already to her name, runs in her marquee races on Friday at 8:20 a.m. (3,200 meters) and Saturday at 11:10 a.m. (1,600 meters). She’ll also run the 800 meters and the 4×800-meter relay.

Relay speedsters

Whoever wins the Class 5A boys 4×100-meter relay on Saturday at 3:40 p.m. might have to break the state record to get the gold. Cherry Creek (state-best 40.92 seconds coming into the meet) and Fort Collins (40.97) are both blazing. The record is 40.59, set by Grandview in 2022. The Bruins are headlined by sophomore Brandon Veasley Jr., while the Lambkins feature senior DJ Ruff.

Fort Collins’ hopes

Speaking of the Lambkins, they are the clear favorite to win the Class 5A boys title, with the potential to tally points across a wide array of events. In addition to DJ Ruff, Fort Collins also features his brother, sophomore Jackson Ruff. The Lambkins also have the state’s top 4×400-meter time. Fort Collins, a dynasty in the 1920s and ’30s, is but first since 2012.

5A girls race

In the girls Class 5A race, defending champion Fossil Ridge is one of the co-favorites heading into Thursday, along with Eaglecrest, which finished third last year. Cherry Creek (runner-up last year) could also challenge. The Sabercats are headlined by senior sprinter Addyson Smith, who has the state’s top time in the 100 meters (11.63 seconds) and also boasts 5A’s best time in the 200 (23.82).

Eaglecrest’s jumping duo

is seeking her third straight Class 5A long jump title in a season where the junior was limited by hip injury. Witt has the top mark in the state at 19 feet, 11.5 inches. Meanwhile, Raptors senior Cameron Bell holds the state’s top boys mark at 24 feet, 8.25 inches. A championship double-dip in the event is within reach. Bell competes Thursday at 8:30 a.m., followed by Witt at 11:30 a.m.

Peyton’s motivation

The Panthers boys left Jeffco Stadium last May in heartbreak, losing the Class 2A title to Sedgwick County, 57.5 to 57. Peyton hasn’t forgotten about the half-point that denied them a championship three-peat, and has worn shirts all season with a reminder on them. In 2A, also keep an eye on Heritage Christian Academy hurdler Alec Lundy, Swink jumper Javin Summers and Sedgwick County thrower Josh Palic.

The Ben Adams Show

Adams, Mountain Vista’s star junior, won the 3,200-meter crown last year by beating his teammate, senior Benjamin Anderson. Adams has taken his domination to another level this year, with the state’s best times in the 1,600 (4:08.42) and 3,200 (8:57.68). He’s a good bet to win both events. The Class 5A boys 3,200 is Thursday at 8:35 a.m., and the 1,600 is Saturday at 2:55 p.m.

Denver East’s new boss

After leading Hinkley, Rangeview and Eaglecrest to individual and team success at the state meet, coach Chris Carhart The Angels are capable of making significant noise this weekend: Keep an eye on the girls’ 4×800-meter relay  (state-best 9:17.03 mark) that runs Saturday at 10 a.m., and junior Jaceson Alexander in the high jump (Friday 10:30 a.m.).

Small-school field power

On the girls side, the state leaders in triple jump, discus and shot put all hail from smaller schools. In Class 3A, University junior Ruby Naber is No. 1 in triple jump (40 feet, 11 inches) while Manitou Springs senior Mackinzy Wall is tops in the discus (144 feet, 3 inches). And in Class 2A, Wiggins senior Brooke Schmidt leads Colorado in shot put with a throw of 43 feet, 3 inches; she’s also ranked fourth in discus.

Unruh’s challenger

In Class 1A, Cheyenne Wells senior Roxy Unruh . The Mines commit is an eight-time individual sprinting champion. She won the 100-meter and 200 as a freshman at Prairie, then swept the 100, 200 and 400 the last two seasons for Cheyenne Wells. She has the top 1A time in the 100 this season (12.28), but is ranked second in the 200 and 400 to Cotopaxi senior Hayden Eggleston.

Headlining the ’26 class is Broncos career interceptions leader Steve Foley, Nuggets legend Lafayette “Fat” Lever and former CU Buffs star quarterback Kordell Stewart.

Also getting inducted at the organization’s 61st annual banquet on April 16 in Denver is International Tennis Hall of Famer Beatriz “Gigi” Fernandez, track athlete and Olympian Wendy Koenig and hooper Harry Hollines, DU’s all-time leading scorer.

Foley played all 11 of his NFL seasons in Denver from 1976-86, where he was a central figure in the secondary of the Orange Crush defense. He helped the Broncos to four AFC West titles and played in two Super Bowls. The Broncos Ring of Famer finished with 44 career interceptions and 877 tackles across 150 regular-season games and 10 playoff games for Denver.

Lever played for the Nuggets from 1984-90. He led the Nuggets to the Western Conference Finals in ’84-’85, and averaged 17 points, 7.6 rebounds, 7.5 assists and 2.5 steals during his Denver tenure. The two-time all-star is the franchise’s all-time steals leader with 1,167, and the Nuggets retired his No. 12 in 2017.

Stewart was a three-year starter at QB for CU. The dual-threat signal caller led the Buffs to a 27-5-1 record in that span and two bowl victories. He went on to an 11-year NFL career, mostly with the Steelers, and CU inducted the 2001 Pro Bowler into its Athletic Hall of Fame in 2018.

Fernandez, an Aspen resident during the prime of her tennis career, won 17 Grand Slam titles and two Olympic gold medals in doubles. The Puerto Rican won the French Open six times, the U.S. Open five times, Wimbledon four times and the Australian Open twice. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame with longtime doubles partner Natasha Zvereva in 2010. After retiring in 1997, she got into tennis instruction and coaching.

Koenig, who graduated from Estes Park High School and Colorado State, competed twice in the 800-meter run in the Olympics. Her first appearance on the world’s largest stage was in 1972 as a 17-year-old, and then she returned to the Games in ’76, where she finished seventh. She won two national titles in the 880-yard run and was an All-American at CSU. The Sportswomen of Colorado Hall of Famer was most recently the mayor of Estes Park.

Hollines, a prep standout at Manual High School, lit up the record book at DU. In three seasons as a Pioneer, Hollines averaged 25.1 points per game for a total of 1,879 points. He was an All-American twice for DU, and went on to make an impact on local youth as the director of the Skyland Rec Center (now called the Hiawatha Davis Jr. Recreation Center) in Denver. DU elected him to its Athletics Hall of Fame in 1996.

Tickets for the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame banquet are $250 each. Since its inception in 1965, the organization has enshrined 292 individuals in its Hall of Fame, with the inaugural class featuring football player Earl “Dutch” Clark, boxer Jack Dempsey and CU football star-turned-Supreme Court Justice Byron “Whizzer” White.

At the Great Southwest Classic in 2018, Hall’s club coach was with her in Albuquerque as the 17-year-old Valor Christian senior-to-be shattered the high school national record in the heptathlon. After Hall set a personal best in the long jump by nearly a foot, Dugue’s job was done, even with two events remaining.

So the hands-on coach, whose pulse is typically racing during meets, went and sat in the bleachers.

“I walked up into the stands and just sat back and relaxed,” Dugue recalled. “(Anna’s dad) David came up to me and was like, ‘Uh, why aren’t you down on the track cheering and coaching?’ I go, ‘She’s got this, just watch. She doesn’t need me anymore.'”

Hall went on to PR in the javelin and dominated the 800 meters en route to the prep record. And since those high school days, those around Hall have been certain what she’s capable of — even when the track star has been unsure of herself.

That trend’s been evident in Hall’s pro career as she endured two difficult injuries in Olympic years, and wrestled with self-doubt along the way, only to come out the other side as a world champion. With Hall’s gold medal at last weekend, the 24-year-old became only the second American woman to win a world title in the heptathlon, joining Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

“In my head, the past few years, I kept thinking maybe my body was cooked forever and I was going to be one of those ‘They could’ve been good’ athletes,” Hall admitted. “But people kept speaking life into me all the time — whether I was talking to Jackie, (boyfriend and Giants receiver) Darius (Slayton), my family, my coaches.

“They couldn’t tell me it would be better tomorrow, but they kept telling me it would be better, and I just had to keep going. If I didn’t have people constantly speaking life into me like that, I don’t know if I would’ve ever turned it around.”

At the 2021 U.S. Olympic Trials, Hall That broke the navicular bone in her left foot, forcing her to withdraw from the trials and evaporating her hopes to make the Tokyo Games.

Hall transferred from Georgia to Florida later that year, where she went on to in 2022. In July of ’22, her career continued to take off when she won bronze at the world championships in Eugene, Ore.

But then a left knee injury suffered shortly before the ’23 world championships in Budapest changed Hall’s trajectory. She still took silver at that meet — by an excruciatingly narrow margin of 20 points — but that was the beginning of nagging knee pain.

“She texted me right before Budapest when she hurt her left knee, saying ‘I don’t think I can do this,'” said Hall’s sister, Julia St-Juste. “I told her she could, and she would, but from then on it was clear her knee wasn’t right.”

Hall had surgery in January 2024 to address a cartilage defect in her knee. The procedure took bone marrow from her hip and sprinkled it on the back of her patella. Doctors also poked holes in the back of her patella and adjusted its positioning to reduce the bone-on-bone friction Hall was experiencing, which was causing repeated stress fractures.

After the procedure, Hall only had six months to recover for the U.S. Olympic Trials, which she won.

“She persevered through a lot of misery just to get to where she was able to go to the Olympics,” says Matt DeLancey, the strength and conditioning coach at Florida who is part of Hall’s team. “I don’t think people thought she was going to be the U.S. champ last year coming off surgery like that.”

Hall placed fifth in Paris in a performance she categorized as “a complete and utter failure.”

In every meet of 2024, Hall said she competed on “heavy pain meds” and was also receiving routine PRP injections in her knee. But the pain persisted, leading to a period of what Hall called “athletic hopelessness” that dragged into the early parts of 2025.

“I did not want to do that again, taking meds to manage pain every meet, and then wondering what it’s going to feel like at the meet and the next day,” Hall said.

Hall fell into a deep funk.

She competed at a meet in January, but withdrew from the rest of the indoor season. Self-doubt seeped in. She experienced nightmares that she missed the Olympics because she was stuck on a bus and of running in slow motion on the second lap of the 800 meters.

At one point during a February practice, she burst into tears from the accumulation of pressure and frustration. Her coaches — the Florida staff of Mike Holloway, Mellanee Welty, Nic Petersen and Eric Werskey — were patient, up to a point.

“My coaches were finally like, ‘You really need to work on your attitude,'” Hall said. “They were like, ‘We know you’re not happy right now, but you have to fake it. Something’s got to change.’ So it was like a fake-it-til-you-make-it situation — stopping speaking negatively at practice, stopping complaining.”

Hall returned to competition in the spring, where she found some success in open events at the Miami Slam. Then, in early June, Hall had an “I’m back” moment, posting a career high . That score tied for second on the all-time leaderboard, behind only Joyner-Kersee’s world record of 7,291.

“That was the meet that exposed the fact to me that it really has been my head this entire time, because 7,000 points is something I’ve been chasing my entire career,” Hall said. “To go and accomplish it like that, I had clearly been fine physically for a while.”

At Götzis, Hall was far from perfect, but she worked around her mistakes. Long been dominant in the high jump and 800, Hall also performed well in the shot put, an event that was previously a weakness.

She won the shot put at Götzis and in Tokyo, with the former performance underscoring her mental growth. Her first heave was 13.31 meters, far below her average. But then she came back on her second throw with a PR of 14.86 — a number she topped in Tokyo with a 15.80.

“I asked what she did different on that second throw, and she said, ‘I just gave myself a stern talking to,'” Welty recalled. “… That’s just who she is. When she decides to do something, she knows what’s important to focus on and how to fix her mistakes. She does that better than most people I’ve ever seen.”

According to Holloway, even in the wake of a 7,000-point score and world title, Hall still has lots of room for growth.

“When she wasn’t 100%, she was bullying and forcing her way through things, so it created bad habits,” Holloway said. “Now that she’s healthy again, we’ve got to get back to (the technique) she was doing before. So even when you look at that big score (at Götzis), she can definitely run the hurdles better, run the 200 better, she can long jump a little better. There’s more points there.”

Hall, back to , agrees. So does her mentor Joyner-Kersee, with whom Hall has become close over the past few years. Joyner-Kersee that Hall “has the ability to put up whatever score she wants to put up.”

And so the chase toward ultimate greatness rolls on, with all of Hall’s focus now on gold at the 2028 L.A. Games. In the process, she’s capable of giving herself a chance to become the sport’s all-time great.

“I am still disappointed with my score at worlds (of 6,888 points),” Hall said. “I know my coaches and others say I hold myself to an unrealistic standard. But I could’ve scored higher than I did. I’ve shown myself I can win these championships. So next time I come (to worlds in 2026), I want to put on a show. I want to score the 7,000 mark, as another preview of what I can do in L.A.”