It was a shiny, gold conclusion to the boys track season for Aurora teams, as a combined seven Class 5A state championships came out of three day of competition at Jeffco Stadium.
The 2024 Aurora Sentinel All-Aurora Boys Track Team — which is based on the performances at the 5A state meet — is laden with winners and high podium placers in a special display.
Cherokee Trail’s dominant run to a second straight team championship came with a balance of talented individuals and relay teams (which accounted for a combined four state titles and helped pile up an astounding 111 points), while two state titles apiece came from Eaglecrest and Overland. Individuals from Rangeview and Regis Jesuit also appear on the All-Aurora first team.
Four All-Aurora first team slots went to Cherokee Trail junior star Peyton Sommers, who won the sprint triple crown (the 100, 200 and 400 meter dashes), while he also anchored the 4×200 meter relay team to gold. Sommers has accrued six individual and three relay state titles in two seasons.
His 400 meter time of 46.59 seconds at the state meet led Colorado regardless of classification, as did his wind-aided (3.0 wind reading) mark of 10.47 seconds in the 100 meters at the Centennial League Championships. At state, Sommers ran 10.54 to win the 100 (over Eaglecrest’s Noah Brown) and 21.13 to take the 200 (over Chaparral’s Wilkins Persichina).
Sommers has plenty of company from teammates on the All-Aurora first team in his fellow winners on the 4×200 relay — seniors Kahari Wilbon and Jayden Hughes and junior Nick Hoffsetz — along with the 4×800 meter relay team of seniors McKay Larsen, Brady Smith and Gino Palombi and sophomore Dylan Smith, plus individuals in senior Jaden Smith (triple jump) and junior Taylor Waters (pole vault).
The Cherokee Trail 4×200 meter relay team posted a time of 1:24.93 that was not only almost two seconds faster than the runner-up, but set a Colorado and 5A state meet record, while the 4×800 meter relay team finished third in the wake of a photo finish between Mountain Vista and ThunderRidge.
Smith popped a jump of 44 feet, 6 1/4 inches, that placed him fourth in the finals of the triple jump for coach Chris Faust’s Cougars, which was the same podium spot earned by Waters, who cleared the state pole vault bar at 14 feet, 10 inches.
Eaglecrest and Overland finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 5A boys team standings with a pair of state championships apiece as a bonus.
Coach Chris Carhart’s Raptors (who won the Centennial League championship a week before state) flexed their strength in the relays with gold medal-winning performances in the 4×100 and 4×400 meter events. The common denominator in both winning performances was an anchor leg run by determined senior Peace Warah.
The 4×100 race saw Warah finish off an effort started by senior Jeffery Poku and juniors Eric Hill and Noah Brown (a baseball standout who made a stirling debut in his first season in track) with a time of 41.86 seconds that wasn’t the group’s fastest time of the season (41.82 in the prelims), but put them in front of Brighton, Mountain Vista and Erie, which had the three fastest times in 5A during the season.
In the 4×400 meter relay, Warah put forth and epic come-from-behind effort in the final stretch that claimed gold for himself as well as seniors Cam Chapa and Evan Keppy and junior Thierry Asare. Eaglecrest’s time of 3:16.77 ended up on top of Cherokee Trail by a fraction of a second.
The relay Raptors are joined by senior Jayden Diggins, the city’s top high jump placer at the state meet with a third-place finish. Diggins earned the All-Aurora nod with a top jump of 6 feet, 5 inches, to outdistance Rangeview freshman Yasin Sekue, who had 5A’s second-best effort during the season of 6-6 1/2, but topped out at 6-3 at the state meet.
The Trailblazers had just three individual state qualifiers, who made a parade to the medal podium, with senior Wondame Davis Jr. and junior Jarrius Ward winning titles.
Ward set the meet abuzz on the opening day when he set a 5A state meet record in the discus with a throw of 203 feet, 4 inches, which blew away the previous mark that had been in place since 1992. The multi-sport standout also earned the All-Aurora spot in the shot put with his runner-up finish with a throw of 55-10 3/4.
Davis Jr. (who began his prep career at Hinkley) arrived from Texas in the middle of the school year and he finished his short stay with a state championship in an Overland uniform. Davis Jr. secured the All-Aurora slot in the long jump with his title, which was earned with a jump of 22 feet, 11 1/4 inches, and required him to sweat out the efforts of some late jumpers.
Regis Jesuit’s All-Aurora representation is heavy on the distance events, as senior David Flaig and junior Braeden Focht combined to put coach Quinn Pack’s Raiders on top in the three longest individual races.
Flaig claimed All-Aurora honors in the 800 meters (in which he got on the medal podium in seventh place) and 1,600, while Focht earned the accolade in the 3,200, but missed the podium as he came in 13th. Junior Charlie Dutmer claimed an All-Aurora spot as well with his performance in the 300 meter hurdles in which he was sixth as the area’s only championship heat qualifier.
For the second year in a row, Rangeview’s Jaheim Alexander was Aurora’s highest finisher in the 110 meter hurdles as he repeated as the event runner-up. It was much closer in his senior year, as Alexander — who raised his arms in what he thought was triumph as he crossed the finish line — was deemed to have come in second behind Fountain-Fort Carson’s Kyler Lewis by an agonizing 0.03 of a second.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
