For the first time in Gunnison Middle School history, the boys cross country team won the Colorado Middle School State Championship on Oct. 25 at Fehringer Ranch Park in Denver. The team finished off an undefeated season with a score of 48 points — 61 points better than the second-place score of 109. The girls team finished in eighth place in the 24-team field with a score of 234 points.
With four runners in the top 10, the Gunnison boys team cruised to their title while Ascent Classical Academy of Douglas County finished second with 109 points.
Four Cowboys finished in the top ten led by Ari Eberly (12 minutes, 23 seconds, 3rd), Brandon Hallock (12:27, 4th), Asher Chodorowski (12:49, 8th) and David Coop (13:06, 9th). Stair (14:05, 34th) had a top-40 finish. Rose Pankratz (15:11, 26th) was the Cowboys top finisher for the girls.
GMS coach Cynthia Bruton said she believes the next lowest score at state in the last 10 years was 74 points.
From the beginning of the season, the team knew success would come down to conquering ‘The Monster’ — a nearly straight up ascent at the end of the Salida Cross Country Classic. They spent all season in preparation for the obstacle. They knew what was coming.
Only a few hundred meters stood between The Monster and the finish line. The runners would have to endure the burn, labored breathing, the loose footing, the tight quarters where few runners could pass each other and the onslaught of new addition to The Monster: stairs on the steep descent.
“Once you got to the top, if you ran the entire way, your legs felt like noodles,” team member Houston Stair said. “And then you have a pretty steep downhill run. In previous years it was straight downhill. This year there were stairs leading down a little bit which made it quite a bit harder. Once you got through those stairs it took a slightly less downhill path and then went into a riverbed and back to the main dirt trail and finish line.”
Attacking ‘The Monster’ was just part of a process that began back in August. When Bruton noticed the Cowboys were internally driven and didn’t need constant prodding to work hard at practice.
“Our runners were so excited to be working towards the goal and thinking about The Monster,” Bruton said. “We knew it was coming in one of the later meets, so we had fun with it, it was always, ‘we gotta get that hill!’ All the runners got into it.”
Against ‘The Monster’ in Salida on Oct. 4 the boys finished in first place with 22 points, Eberly (1st), Hallock (2nd), Chodorowski (3rd) and Stair (6th) packed the top 10. The girls also finished in first with 33 points and were led by Pankratz (3rd), Sophie Nold (5th), Lily McElyea (8th), Brynna Rota (12th) and Paisley Betts (13th) who all finished in the top 15.
All the practices that were designed with more hills than usual paid off. There were more runs at Signal Peak and training filled with extra intervals. The Cowboys relished the opportunity to run in practice and Bruton gave them what they wanted.
“We didn’t know what we had until the first practice,” Bruton said. “They were all about it when we pushed them very hard. We knew a lot of good runners were coming up but had no idea how good they were. Normally we start out slow and work into it. We started out gangbusters from the get-go. At our first meet they were ready to go.”
(James Nokes writes for Colorado Preps.)
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