State cross country: Aiden Le Roux, Addison Ritzenhein are fastest boy and girl in Colorado after setting course records

COLORADO SPRINGS — Aiden Le Roux is officially the fastest high school runner in Colorado.

The Cheyenne Mountain junior ran 15:02.1 on Saturday at the CHSAA state cross country meet at the Norris Penrose Event Center, winning the Class 4A title and setting an all-classification course record in the process.

“This is the backyard for my high school, and I do run here a lot and I love this course,” Le Roux said. “It means a lot to hold the record for it. I didn’t know what the record was, but I was running as fast as I could. I wasn’t looking at the clock.”

Le Roux beat out his teammate, senior Brogan Collins, by 16 seconds to win the championship. Collins surged in the latter half of the race to help Le Roux nearly break the 15-minute mark. Le Roux’s time was seven seconds better than the Class 5A champion, Mountain Vista senior Benjamin Anderson, who turned in a 15:09.5 as he also went one-two with his teammate Benjamin Adams.

Saturday marked Le Roux’s first state title after he couldn’t run at the state meet as a freshman because he was injured, and took fifth last year.

“Being able to win is one thing, but being able to share it with your team and having your teammate push you throughout the race, that’s really important,” Le Roux said.

Colorado’s fastest girl

The least surprising result on Saturday? Niwot’s Addison Ritzenhein, the state’s top distance runner, won yet again.

It marked the junior’s third straight state title. The first two came in Class 4A, and with the Cougars’ move to Class 5A this fall, the step up proved no problem for Ritzenhein. After setting the 4A course record last year, she blasted the all-classification course record on Saturday, with her mark of 16:54.7 bettering the previous mark held by Valor Christian’s Brooke Wilson by five seconds.

“Watching Brooke set that record, it shows how strong Colorado female runners are,” Ritzenhein said. “It’s such a special thing to keep adding on to that, and lowering it, and hopefully it gives some more inspiration to other young runners to go after that.”

Ritzenhein, who claimed a national title by winning Nike Cross Nationals last year with a time of 17:10.4, will look to defend her crown at that race again in early December. And she said she expects to make her college decision, which is between Northern Arizona and North Carolina State, after that meet.

“This win today is going to set me up for success at (Nike Cross Regionals) and NXN,” Ritzenhein said. “There’s some similarities to NXN. NXN is grass, that’s the biggest difference. But like here (at Norris Penrose), there’s lots of hills, there’s a little water because last year at NXN there was a huge puddle of water in the course.”

Blowing away the field