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Girls Race Recap
Ritzenhein Wins Individual Race, Bethany Michalak Leads Academy's Team As Colorado Shows Out In Girls Championship

By Doug Binder, DyeStat Editor

Coloradoans enjoyed a watershed day on a water-logged course on Saturday at Nike Cross Nationals in the girls championship race.

Niwot sophomore Addison Ritzenhein displayed the same championship mettle of her father as she reeled in mid-race leader Elizabeth Leachman and went on to win in 17:10.4.

Bethany Michalak, right behind her in second, led Academy to Colorado's first NXN team championship with 61 points.

"Conditions were perfect considering we're from Colorado," Ritzenhein said. "I guess I really like the mud."

Colorado teams swept the top three spots. Niwot was second with 72 points and Denver was third with 163 points.

Lone Peak from Utah finished with 201 points, completing a four-team sweep of the top spots by the Southwest region.

Emily Wisniewski, the Oregon and NXR Northwest won a photo finish for third place with another Colorado athlete, Isabel Allori, as both finished within the same tenth of a second with 17:37.4.

Pre-race favorites Rachel Forsyth and Leachman ran with confidence out of the gate.

Forsyth, the NXR Midwest champion from Ann Arbor, Mich., sprinted out to the lead and led for the first 1,000 meters of the race.

That's when Leachman of Boerne, Texas zoomed past Forsyth and shot into the lead. There were moments when it seemed Leachman would run away with it and she built a 15-second lead by the 3,000-meter mark.

But Ritzenhein and Michalak slowly reeled in Leachman in. And when Ritzenhein took the lead she really started to roll and powered through the final mile.

Ritzenhein's father, Dathan, an Olympian, won two Foot Locker national championships in 1999 and 2000. Her mother, Kalin Toedebusch, was a classmate of Dathan at Rockford High in Michigan and was also a standout runner who placed fifth in the 2000 Foot Locker final.