COLORADO SPRINGS | McKenna Groen took an unexpected dip near the end of the Class 5A girls state cross country race Nov. 1, but it didn’t keep her off the medal podium.
In fact, the Regis Jesuit freshman’s stumble at the water crossing on the way into the closing stretch at the Norris Penrose Event Center improved her standing among the top 10.
Groen recovered from her spill and surged to the finish line for an Aurora-area ninth-place finish in her state meet debut.
“This race was definitely way harder than I thought and I fell in the water, so I thought ‘I’m not going to get top 10,’ but I made my kick and got it,” said Groen, who finished the challenging 3.1-mile course in 18 minutes, 8 seconds, to secure one of the coveted all-state positions.
Groen had a very strong debut season and earned her way through regionals as an individual to get a chance to run in the state meet for the first time.
After a week in which she said she had to make an urgent care visit because of lymph node soreness, Groen suffered a bit of a case of nerves prior to toeing the start line.
“If anyone saw me before this, I was panicking and thinking I might not get 15, so I was just processing what was going to happen,” she said.
Once the race actually started, Groen adhered to a conservative race plan — fighting the urge to try to stay with Niwot star Addison Ritzenhein, who cruised to her third straight individual state championship — and bided her time alongside a former club teammate (Arapahoe’s Maeve Vancik) for two-thirds of the race.
Then came the creek crossing.
“I’m just not great at water crossings and its not even big, but I just like fell in the mud,” Groen said. “But after that I actually made up a place.”
Knowledge of the course from running the Cheyenne Mountain Stampede back on Aug. 23 (at which she finished third) helped her know how much race was left in front of her after the mishap.
Groen was able to edge Fossil Ridge’s Avery Breitigam by 0.04 of a second to place ninth, which gave the Regis Jesuit girls program its highest finish at the state meet since Isalina Colsman took seventh in 2017.
Next among Aurora area qualifiers in the girls race came fellow freshman Madison Lange, who finished 21st in her debut for Cherokee Trail, which finished 17th as a team.
Juniors Jade McDaniel and Clara Kapfer took 78th and 81st, respectively, to help the Cougars, which got its other two scores from Ellie Van Fossen (132) and Elizabeth Skibitskii (142nd).
Eaglecrest junior Jenna Winn took 40th in her second state trip.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
