Cherokee Trail repeats as Class 5A boys track state champion

LAKEWOOD — Chris Faust needs another tattoo.

The Cherokee Trail boys repeated as the Class 5A track state champions on Saturday at Jeffco Stadium, blowing away the field with 111 points, nearly double the tally of second-place Mountain Vista.

For that feat, Faust will add some more ink, as he gets a tattoo for each of the Cougars’ state titles. CT’s now won four championships on the boys side to go along with a pair on the girls side.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this, where we’ve scored so many more points than what we were seeded against,” said Faust, in his 21st year as the Cougars head coach. “On paper, we were expecting to get 85 points. Usually if you’ve got 85 projected, we can get to 70 or 75, and that will usually win boys 5A. But we outperformed across the board.”

Faust’s tattoos honoring his title teams feature state rings, a winged foot, Cherokee Trail’s original logo and — his most recent addition after the Cougars’ boys crown last spring — the Flying Dutchman from Spongebob Squarepants on his left calf. All of those tattoos have the title years corresponding with the images.

The repeat is even sweeter for Faust considering the last time Cherokee Trail was a favorite to go back-to-back, in 2014, the Cougars stumbled at state. They dropped a baton in the 1,600-meter relay preliminaries to miss the finals, and had a couple other blunders en route to finishing second to Fountain-Fort Carson by six points.

“You can’t assume what’s happening on paper is going to happen in the meet,” Faust said. “So it’s a credit to our team for staying focused this year.”

While the Cougars were headlined by junior sprinter Peyton Sommers, who swept the 100-, 200- and 400-meter crowns and ran the anchor on Cherokee Trail’s state-record 800-meter relay, Faust emphasizes it was a total team effort that allowed Cherokee Trail to dominate.

Faust hailed New Mexico-bound senior Kahari Wilbon, a three-year captain, as the “undisputed leader of this team.” Add in other key point-accumulating performances by athletes like junior Solomon Griffen (third in the 110-meter hurdles), senior Cayden Sweets (third in the long jump), junior Taylor Waters (fourth in the pole vault) and senior Jaden Smith (fourth in the triple jump), and Cherokee Trail was a deep, unstoppable force.

“Peyton Sommers is without a doubt the most talented athlete I’ll ever coach,” Faust said. “But the other guys can’t get left behind (in getting credit). That group scored enough points at this meet to be state champions even if Peyton isn’t on this team.”

All along the way, Faust remain super superstitious.

He wore the same outfit he has at every meet for the past two years — a gray CT jacket with a black CT cross country shirt underneath, along with black sweats — that were a bit hot for the warm weather of this year’s state meet. “I’m burning up,” he admitted with a smile.

And he ate the same breakfast, at the same restaurant, every morning of the meet just as he did last year: the Split Decision at IHOP. “I’m pretty sick of it,” he quipped.

All because he wasn’t willing to risk ruining the mojo of his Cougars. As if that was even possible with the talent the Cougars currently have, and are returning next spring, too, as they look to become the first Class 5A boys team to three-peat since Smoky Hill in 2003-05.

“Back-to-back means 10 times more to me than any of this individual stuff,” Sommers said. “We preach brotherhood, and that’s truly what we have. And I want the three-peat. I don’t want to just rest on this two-peat. We have a lot of guys coming back and we can do this again in 2025.”

Northfield claims first crown. In Class 4A, Northfield continued its all-sports ascent as the Denver Public Schools program to watch by claiming its first state track championship. The Nighthawks edged Montrose and Niwot, who tied for second, 74-66.

“A few years ago only a couple guys made it to state from Northfield,” said Nighthawks senior Karamoko Sacko. “But the team’s grown, our talents have grown, our belief has grown. We’ve improved a lot as a program, and we put it all together this weekend.”

Sacko, who has offers from Georgia and Florida, keyed Northfield’s victory.

He set a Colorado record in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 13.45, breaking the record of 13.61 set by Eaglecrest’s Wilbert Smith in 2004. Sacko also placed second in the 100 and second in the 200, thus accounting for 26 points all by himself.