As Cougar cross country nears closer to championship season, the team made a great showing at the Salida Cross Country Invitational this past weekend.

Coronado’s men’s team claimed third place at the meet despite the absence of veteran varsity runner Andrew Burton, who was sidelined with a knee injury this week. Leading the Cougars to their strong finish was junior Ben Swanson, who stopped the clock in 17:55, good for fourth place. Following only four seconds and one place behind was senior Conor Strizich, who was trailed by sophomores Charlie Schroeder, Ben Hayes-Lemon, and Eric White. Although the Cougars did not place as well as a team this year, they showed great underclassmen potential at the meet.

On the girls’ side, varsity, despite being down two runners, put their best foot forward at the meet. With the help of sophomore Lauren Strizich’s standout performance stepping up into the fifth scoring position, the women’s varsity avenged their second place finish last year by defeating fellow 5A schools Arapahoe and Regis Jesuit. “Our goal was to run as a team, and [that is ] exactly what we did. . . [I am] so proud of all the girls who ran.” Coronado had four ladies in the top ten: Grace Abernethy led the pack in third place, and Faith Roth, 11, Taylor Dutton, 12, and Maddy Morland, 11, followed in 6th, 7th, and 8th places respectively. Absent from the meet this week was varsity regular Chloe Cassens, who journeyed to Desert Twilight Invitational, a meet that takes place at night in Casa Grande, Arizona. On the blistering fast and flat course the senior ran herself to a massive personal record of 18:39, twenty three seconds faster than her best time prior to the meet.

The Cougars competing in Salida demonstrated great improvements as well. Over half of the runners who ran both this and last year from Coronado dropped their times: Nine Cougars chiseled more than twenty seconds from their times last year. Some of the most massive improvements of the race came from sophomores Ben Hayes Lemmon, Zoe Gross, and Lauren Strizich who each took off more than 1:45 seconds from their time. However, the most spectacular performance of the day, by far, was by junior Titus Sharman who cut a whopping 5:11 off.

Catch the Cougars at the Colorado Springs Metro League Championships next Thursday, 10/12!