Without Peyton Sommers, the Cherokee Trail boys track & field team would have scored 74 points and comfortably won the Class 5A state championship.
But the Cougars do have Sommers — who coach Chris Faust calls “hands down, the best male track athlete in Colorado” — and that made them overwhelming and inevitable over three days at Jefferson County Stadium.
Sommers won the sprint triple crown in the 100, 200 and 400 meters May 18 and anchored a Colorado record-setting 4×200 meter relay team to help a deep Cherokee Trail team score 111 points, the most in the 5A boys meet in two decades.
“It’s way more than we thought; on paper, we were seeded to score 85 points, but the kids just kept outperforming what their seeds were,” said Faust, whose team finished with the highest point total since Smoky Hill dropped 126 in 2004.
“Peyton Sommers is the best track athlete we’ve ever had, but these boys would have won the state championship if he wasn’t on the team. It was incredible.
“These guys always put the team before the individual.”
Minus Sommers’ 40 points (10 for each event win), the Cougars would still have put up 71, which would have been 13 more than runner-up Mountain Vista, while Cherry Creek took third with 48.
Sommers for certain did a lot of heavy lifting in a performance that even eclipsed what he did as a sophomore, when he won three events and finished second in another.
Coming all the way back from a hamstring tweak early in the season, Sommers finished first every time he took the track, in prelims and finals over three days. His first gold came May 17 in the 4×200 meter relay, as he anchored the team of seniors Kahari Wilbon and Jayden Hughes plus junior Nick Hoffsetz to a record-setting victory.
The Cougars’ time of 1 minute, 24.93 seconds, set an all-classification state record (as it bested the 2013 mark of 1:25.46 from Valor Christian, which featured NFL star Christian McCaffrey) and the 5A state meet record (as it topped George Washington’s 1:25.59 from 2007) in the process.
On the final day of the meet, Sommers first claimed the 100 meters — in which he finished second in 2023 — with a time of 10.54 seconds, then took the 400 in 46.59 seconds and lastly ran 21.13 to claim the 200. At the end, he capped it off with credit to his teammates and the kind of culture the program has established.
“We are all equally hard working and we push each other to the point where we can win by double or triple the score of the next team,” Sommers said. “It feels good to be in this position.”
Cherokee Trail had enough points in hand before lunchtime on the final day to win the meet, following the 400 as Wilbon and junior Kaelan Kombo finished second and fifth, respectively, behind Sommers in a 25-point haul.
“We had what we needed at 11:30 (a.m.),” said Faust, who has guided Cherokee Trail to three 5A state championships and another in 4A.
The Cougars nearly ended the meet with another victory, but the 4×400 meter relay team of Wilbon, Hoffsetz, Kombo and senior McKay Larsen lost by .002 of a second to late-charging Eaglecrest.
Cherokee Trail finished top seven in all four relay events, while Wilbon turned in top-five finishes in two events (second in the 400 and fifth in the 200), while senior Cayden Sweets (long jump) and junior Solomon Griffen (110 meter hurdles) had third-place finishes, junior pole vaulter Taylor Waters claimed fourth and Kombo fifth to highlight several individual point scorers.
“This was the best three days I think we’ve ever had at Cherokee Trail,” Wilbon said. “Our coach told us that each day got better than the last and really made us stronger on this last day. I’m so thankful for my teammates and my brothers.
“We always chase more than what we want. If you just want one thing and that’s what’s set in your mind, you can only achieve so much. But if you push past that threshold and become greater, there’s no limit. That’s what we did today.”
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
