The Durango cross country team joined the rest of the best at the 4A state championship meet Saturday in Colorado Springs.

Niwot won both the boys and girls team titles. Niwot’s top five boys runners had an average race time of 15 minutes and 56 seconds, and its top five girls runners had an average race time of 18:00.

The Durango girls placed eighth in the team results with an average time of 20:36, while the Durango boys finished 11th with an average time of 17:15.

“I was really proud of the kids,” Durango coach Ron Keller said. “They showed a lot of courage, the sick and the injured. I was real proud of the way they ran and with a lot of adversity.”

Battle Mountain’s Will Brunner won the boys race with a time of 15:19.9, while Niwot’s Addison Ritzenhein won the girls race with a time of 17:08.2.

Junior Sofia Voss was Durango’s top girls runner, finishing 30th out of 157th runners with a time of 19:45. Freshman Lacy Ruggiero finished 42nd with a time of 20:16.

Demons junior Luke Swenk led the Durango boys by finishing 24th out of 151 runners with a time of 16:19. Durango senior Charlie Dillman finished 44th, crossing the finish line at 16:52.

“In their minds and in their heads, I think going in they knew that we were a weaker team than we were when we started in August,” Keller said. “We had high hopes, high expectations and I felt like the girls on paper in August might have been the second-best team in 4A. It just kind of dwindled away with all of the problems.”

Keller noted that the team was undertrained because of all the illnesses and injuries that took runners out of practice throughout the season, but the future looks bright as the Demons should return almost all of the girls squad and many of the boys runners as well.

bkelly@durangoherald.com