The Cherokee Trail and Eaglecrest boys finished first and second in the final 5A boys team standings and much of the talent that got both squads there combines on the 2025 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Boys Track Team.
Overland, Rangeview and Regis Jesuit also have representation among the the city’s top performers in 18 events over three days of competition at Jefferson County Stadium.
Coach Chris Faust’s Cherokee Trail team became the first boys successful three-peat winner since Smoky Hill in 2003-05 with a vast array of talent in all areas, which accumulated just enough to hold off Eaglecrest.
The Cougars were a true team in that regard, as they came away with at least a point in 10 different events, which included maximum hauls in the 400 meters (senior Peyton Sommers), pole vault (senior Taylor Waters) and 4×400 meter relay (Sommers, fellow seniors Nurudeen Diallo and Nick Hoffsetz and junior Dylan Smith).
Sommers dominated the state meet as a junior, but the Penn State commitment suffered a hamstring injury that severely curtailed his senior season. It took everything he could do so he could run at the state meet in which he qualified for only the 400. Clearly hindered, Sommers still managed to run a time of 47.09 seconds in the final, which was fastest in Colorado regardless of classification, and landed him his third consecutive state championship in the event.
The Cougars finished the meet with a flourish with two wins, starting by the program’s inaugural pole vault championship. Waters had an outstanding season from start to finish and cleared 16 feet at every meet in which he competed, including the state meet, where the Colorado State University signee achieved a personal best of 16-9. That jump led the state by more than four inches over 4A state champion Cooper VanMaurer of Central of Grand Junction. Senior Sawyer Carr tied for sixth place to give Cherokee Trail a 16-point punch in the penultimate event.
To finish things off, Faust deployed a team that only needed to finish close to Eaglecrest to secure the team championship, but the Cougars went out and won the event in style. The combination of Hoffsetz, Smith and Diallo set up Sommers — who was determined to run the event no matter what — and finished with a time of 3 minutes, 17.26 seconds, that bested runner-up Eaglecrest for the fastest in the state regardless of classification.
Smith was one of Cherokee Trail’s top point scorers and he finished with a total of three All-Aurora honors, which included an individual spot in the 800 meters as well as his combination with senior Andrew Crippen, junior Carter Getty and sophomore Tanner Larsen on the 4×800 meter relay. Smith won the Centennial League title in the 800 and at the state meet ran his PR of 1:53.35, which was good enough for third place. In the opening race of the meet, he combined with Crippen, Getty and Larsen to run a time of 8:00.88, which put them ninth on the medal podium, but was just a half second out of sixth place.
The Cougars’ final All-Aurora performers rounded out by junior Prince David Ajibade in the high jump, sophomore Cristian Mbamarah in the 100 meters and Mbamarah, Hoffsetz, Diallo and sophomore Corbin Cole in the 4×200 relay. Ajibade cleared 6-5 at the state meet to establish a PR and place fourth. With Sommers unable to qualify for state in the 100 due to his injury, Mbamarah — coming off a strong football season in the fall — scored points in the event with his seventh-place finish. He finished seventh with a time of 10.77 in the finals, which was slightly behind his PR of 10.53. The 4×200 meter relay team secured the All-Aurora spot with a 0.16 victory over Eaglecrest in the finals as it ran 1:26.83.
Coach Chris Carhart’s Eaglecrest team made a valiant run at the program’s first state championship since 2002, but settled for a runner-up finish.
The Raptors’ landed one championship from the 4×100 meter relay team of seniors Eric Hill Jr. and Burke Withycombe along with juniors Quincy Clayton and Bryson States. Eaglecrest’s season-best time of 40.99 seconds came at the Centennial League championship meet, but a 41.40 in the finals secured the title, as Hill Jr. (part of a championship-winning 4×200 relay in 2024) anchored.
Eaglecrest’s top individual scorer was junior Cameron Bell, who earned three All-Aurora individual spots with a sweep of the 110 and 300 meter hurdles in addition to the long jump. One of four Aurora area qualifiers for the 110 finals, Bell crossed the finish line in 14.42 seconds, which was only behind Loveland’s Jackson Conroy. He was alone among locals in the 300 finals and ran 38.96 to finish in third place, which matched his position in the final standings of the long jump.
Bell’s top leap of 22 feet, 7 inches, gave him an inch clearance over senior teammate Kendell Moreland in a point-binge long jump event that saw three Raptors make the medal podium (senior Thierry Asare placed sixth). Bell is the only one of the top six placers in the 5A long jump who does not graduate.
Also expected back for next season for Eaglecrest is States, who earned the All-Aurora spot in the triple jump as he surged from a pre-meet position of 12th all the way to third. States’ last jump of the finals of 46-1 1/4 bettered his best during the regular season by more than two feet.
Rounding out the state champions for Aurora boys is Overland senior Jarrius Ward, who strengthened his grip on state supremacy in the 5A discus with a second consecutive title. Although he eased to a repeat as the only athlete to cross the 180-foot mark, Ward’s winning throw of 182-5 (almost 20 feet further than the state runner-up) did not surpass his 5A state meet record of 203-4 from 2024. He will continue his track & field career at Colorado State-Pueblo, where he will also play football.
Rangeview had a two-event All-Aurora performer in Rangeview’s Abdinasir Hassan, who had a strong freshman season. A state qualifier in cross country in the fall, Hassan went on to put on the area’s top performances at the state meet that yielded medal podium appearances in both distance events. He ran 4:16.48 in the 1,60o to take eighth, which represented a move up six spots from his pre-meet seeding and an improvement of two and a half seconds.
Hassan slipped a bit from his pre-meet seeding in the 3,200 meters (in which he was the City League champion) with a ninth-place result, while his season-best time of 9:15.07 came with his victory at the HOKA St. Vrain Invitational May 9.
Individually, Grandview is represented by senior Revano Plummer, who led locals in the 200 meter dash as he ran a 21.98 to finish eighth, while Regis Jesuit senior Dominic Dogue topped the city in the shot put. His effort of 50-7 —which bettered his previous season best of 49-9 1/2 — put him seventh.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
