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Cottonwood boys cross country team places sixth at 5A state championships

Dec 16, 2021 11:04AM ● By Brian Shaw

The cross country state championships took place at the Regional Athletic Complex in Salt Lake City. (File photo Julie Slama/City Journals)

By Brian Shaw | [email protected]

Since the summer, the Cottonwood Colts boys cross country team has been practicing every day, early in the morning, and almost always along the rolling hills of the Cottonwood Complex. 

On Oct. 27, just as the weather was getting more chilly, the Colts showed why they are a team on the rise at the 5A state cross country championships. 

Paced by Timothy Thompson in 75th place who completed the course at the Regional Athletic Complex in Salt Lake City in 17 minutes and 11 seconds, the Colts as a team had their best showing at the 5A State cross country championships in several years. 

Thompson was the Colts top finisher in a time of 17 minutes and 52 seconds. Skyelar Limburg crossed the finish line in 124th place, while Seth Dunn was in 135th in a time of 17:58. 

Naaman Orbezua-Black was next for Cottonwood in 162nd in 18 minutes and 36 seconds, Colby Merryweather 173rd in 19 minutes and nine seconds, and Ethan Despain rounded out the Colts finishers at the 51 state tournament in 179th place in a time of 21 minutes and three seconds. 

The Colts boys had several good meets leading up to the big finish at state, including the final divisional meet that determined which schools in Class 5A would qualify for state. 

Under head coach Jason Baker, the Colts boys were the last team to have qualified for the state championships at the divisional meet at Lakeside Park in Orem Oct. 13, finishing 12th overall in Division B out of 16 schools. 

For a boys team that finished fifth overall out of seven schools at its Region 7 meet at the Cottonwood Complex back on Sept. 30, having a culmination at the state championships of all of their hard work the past two years—the Colts boys didn’t qualify in 2020—was big for the program’s future. 

Thompson and Dunn had already finished in the top 15 at region on the friendly confines of the rolling hills that comprise the complex—a course these Colts have been training on nearly every morning since the summer. 

In all, the Colts boys sent six runners to the state championships on the boys side, and all six completed the race. The girls cross country team, which finished in 16th place overall in Division B at the divisionals, and seventh at the Region 7 meet, did not qualify for the state championships.