All Local, All The Time
All Local, All The Time
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Niwot High School sophomore Fiona Nugent’s six months of treatment for cancer are behind her and in front of her now is the anticipation of the upcoming track and field season, continuing to play her cello and creating art. Then, there’s her first trip out of the country thanks to Make-A-Wish Colorado. Wish Night, the organization’s annual fundraising event, was held on Feb. 22 with hundreds of donors in attendance at the festivities. That evening, Nugent’s gift of a week in Paris was publica...
On Feb. 11, Niwot High principal Eric Rauschkolb announced that the school has selected Loveland High’s Kevin Clark to replace outgoing assistant principal and athletic director Chase McBride, who is leaving for a position with the St. Vrain Valley School District at the end of the school year. “After an extensive search, we are pleased to inform you that a recommendation will be made to the Board of Education that Mr. Kevin Clark be hired as the new Assistant Principal and Athletic Dir...
August 29, 1928 – December 24, 2018 Richard Alan “Dick” Knaus, 90, passed away December 24, 2018 at Longs Peak Hospital after celebrating a traditional Christmas Eve holiday with his family. Dick was born on August 29, 1928 on the family farm near Niwot, Colorado to Dan and Lillian (Wederquist) Knaus. He devoted his life to working the family farm. He was a descendent of the Clemens Knaus family, who were one of the first settlers in the Left Hand area in 1860. Dick graduated from Longm...
VOLLEYBALL Sarah Falk (Niwot) played 10 matches for Sacramento State this fall, seeing action in 14 sets. Falk, a redshirt freshman, playing middle blocker. Falk finished with seven kills on the season in 10 attacks, with only two errors. Mackenzie Fidelak (Niwot) was part of Stanford’s NCAA Championship team. The freshman outside hitter saw action in three early season games for the Cardinal, but was able to preserve a redshirt season. Fidelak, who wore jersey number 7, earned substantial s...
It’s hard to top a state championship for drama, but the Niwot girls’ performance at the Nike Cross National Championships on Dec. 1 may have come close. Seeded 22nd of the 22 teams invited, the Cougars finished fifth overall on the day and cemented their status as one of the most surprising high school cross country teams of 2018. One person who wasn’t surprised was Niwot cross country head coach Kelly Christensen, who said that his team knew they were better than their last-place seed. “Afte...
When Layla Roebke joined the Niwot girls cross country team this season, it didn’t just add another talented runner to the roster. She also proved to be a crucial ingredient in head coach Kelly Christensen’s state championship formula. With a personal-best time of 18 minutes 29 seconds, the newcomer claimed an upset win in this year’s Class 4A title race and led the Cougars to their first ever team title. “Obviously, we couldn’t have done many of the things we did without having her,” Chr...
Fifteen-year-old Fiona Nugent was a patient at Children’s Hospital of Colorado when a volunteer visited her room and told her about an art contest the hospital holds each year. Nugent was instantly interested and knew precisely what she would like to do. She wanted to create a painting of a landscape scene she’d photographed – it was of a snow-covered barn that had caught her attention on Airport Road. Nugent, a sophomore at Niwot High School, said, “I’ve always enjoyed art as a way to just c...
With barely time to catch their breath after winning the 2018 Class 4A state championship meet late last month, members of the Niwot girls cross country team traveled to Casa Grande, AZ, for the Nike Cross Nationals Southwest Regional on Nov. 17. Thousands of high school runners from teams in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah competed in the meet, one of eight regional qualifying events for the 15th annual Nike Cross National Championships coming up on Dec. 1 in Portland, Ore....
VOLLEYBALL Sarah Falk (Niwot) has played eight matches for Sacramento State this fall. Falk, a redshirt freshman, is a middle blocker. After seeing action in only three of the first 18 games, she has played in five of the last eight games. Falk has five kills on the season in 10 attacks, with only one error. Mackenzie Fidelak (Niwot) played her first collegiate match for Stanford University in a 3-0 victory over West Virginia Sept. 1. Fidelak, who is listed as an outside hitter/opposite on the r...
Niwot’s Ares Reading was not satisfied with his 11th-place finish at the cross country championships a year ago, so he decided to take a new approach for his senior year. Hoping to shake off the lingering effects of moving from California to a mile above sea level, Reading embarked on a grueling off-season workout program with his teammates over the summer in a bid for faster times. “The season before the season is where the work really gets put in, so I decided to focus on that,” he said....
Long months of hard work and sacrifice paid off in the most satisfying way for the Niwot girls cross country team at this year’s Class 4A state championships, held Oct. 27 at the Norris-Penrose Center in Colorado Springs. Led by one-two finishers Layla Roebke and Taylor James, the Cougars ended with 47 points to claim their first-ever state title, a feat made possible thanks to the unusually strong team bond forged during a grueling regular season, according to junior Joelle McDonald, who was N...
The Niwot girls put an exclamation point on their “amazing” regular season with a dominating win at the Class 4A Region 3 cross-country championships, held at Lyons High School on Oct. 18. Running in a pack, the Cougars posted four of the race’s five fastest times to claim the team title and qualified to represent Niwot at the Class 4A State Championships in Colorado Springs on Oct. 27. “We had four girls, and any one of them could have won it,” Niwot head cross-country coach Kelly Christens...
Retired Niwot social studies teacher Douglas Duffy was recently diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, and now his friends and family are inviting the community to come lend their support. On Friday, Oct. 26, Bootstrap Brewing Company (6778 N. 79th St., Niwot) is hosting Drafts for Duffy to honor the longtime educator and coach as well as raise funds in anticipation of upcoming medical expenses. “We knew the community would want to support him in a fun way,” Niwot High counselor Leah Mes...
Battling unseasonable heat and a very hilly course, the Niwot boys and girls cross country teams both took first place at the RE-1J District cross country meet at Sunset golf course on Sept. 12. Four of the Niwot girls (Samrawit Dishon, Maggie Smith, Taylor James, and Joelle McDonald), finished among the top five, holding hands as they crossed the finish line. The boys top finishers were Caleb Bishop (3rd), Luke Robinson (5th), and Jack Kenkel (6th). Cougar freshman Zane Bergen was also among...
World-renowned distance runner Melody Fairchild is bringing her vaunted Boulder Mountain Warriors school-age running club to Longmont. Launching in September, the 13-week Fall Cross Country program is open to students ages seven to 14 who have a passion for running and want to develop their skills both on and off the course. “We want students to leave with a solid knowledge-base about how to be a healthy balanced runner,” Fairchild said of her six-year old program. “I want them to have the n...
The Niwot cross-country teams found their way back into the Class 4A top-10 in 2017, and now they’re ready to take it a step further. “Their goals are a state title and to go to Nike Nationals as a team,” third-year head coach Kelly Christensen.said. “Those are the goals they set, and that’s the work we did in preparation for that.” Both teams started charting their course to the Class 4A championship immediately after last year’s state meet. Since then, they’ve endured weeks of grueling indoor...
On July 27-28, students from Niwot High kicked off the fabrication phase of ‘Cougars Creating Classrooms,’ a building project spearheaded by the Mwebaza Foundation to transform used shipping containers into instructional space for the Mwebaza Infant Primary School in Kyengera, Uganda. Over the two days, representatives from the football, girls tennis, golf, cross country, and track teams, as well as the IB program, Robotics Club, and Boy Scout Troop 161, unpacked materials for the project and...
The act of a person, animal or thing that runs is what you will find in the dictionary when you look up the word running. For David Perry, running is that and so much more. It embraces what he does – twice a day; what his job revolves around – partnering with Adidas on creating their apparel and footwear; how he helps others – motivating groups of runners in the community. It’s a conduit for expressing creativity and using his business sense – pouring it into his own clothing brand, and it di...
BASEBALL David Bote, son of former NHS Baseball Coach Bob Bote, earned his third promotion to the Chicago Cubs’ major league squad June 26 when Kris Bryant went on the disabled list. Bote has been back and forth between Iowa (AAA) and the Cubs this season after making his major league debut with the Cubs during an April trip to Colorado. At Iowa, Bote was hitting .268 with 12 homers and 38 RBI, both high marks on the team. He has played second base, third base, shortstop and outfield in the m...
Singer-songwriter Rebecca Folsom performs in exotic venues all over the world, but there is no place the long-time Rock & Rails favorite enjoys more than the bandstand at Whistle Stop Park in the summertime. “It’s my favorite of the whole year,” the Boulder native said about her upcoming show on July 5. “Coming home and playing for my Colorado people is where I’m very happy. It’s the sweet spot for me, to play for the hometown crowds. I’m in the heart of where I want to be.” Though Folsom i...
Even though their team fell short of its ultimate goal, seniors Alex Herman and Oskar Wells consider Niwot’s 18th-place finish at this year’s Class 4A state track and field championships a fitting coda to the boys’ most successful season in years. After scoring just 4 points total in their last four state appearances, this year’s squad racked up a total of 21 points at the three-day event, thanks mostly to Wells, who medaled twice, first for his fifth-place finish in the 800M and again with th...
Niwot IB valedictorian Kamran Elahi said he was thrilled when he learned early in the 2017-18 school year that he had earned the top rank amongst his talented cohorts. “I had an idea I was up there,” the senior said. “Obviously there’s a ton of really, really smart, really nice kids that I go to school with, so I was a little bit unsure. It was probably one of the happiest moments of my high school career to find that out.” Elahi was quick to dispel the notion that students in Niwot’s e...
For a sure sign that the Niwot boys track team is having a special season, look no further than the Northern League championships, held May 4-5 at Everly Montgomery Stadium in Longmont. Behind surprisingly strong performances in the sprints and jumping events, the Cougars scored 151 team points to claim the 2018 conference title, a feat Niwot head track coach Maurice Henriques called “a great accomplishment for our program.” “Being here for eight years, we’ve never a Northern Conference meet,...
After her breakout cross country season, which included an impressive win in the regional meet, it would be easy to pigeonhole Niwot freshman Taylor James as mainly a distance runner. In her inaugural track and field season, however, the ninth-grader has shown a surprising depth of talent for both sprinting and jumping. Case in point is her performance at the exclusive Mullen Invitational, where she extended her streak of high jump wins to five with a mark of 5’6”, both a personal best and the s...
The Niwot boys track team is off to its best start in years, thanks in part to distance specialist Oskar Wells. At the season’s opening meet on March 10, Wells claimed his first-ever individual title with a victory in the 800M, finishing in 1:58.61, a new personal best. Since then, the soccer-player-turned-runner has won the 800M at two more local meets, the St. Vrain RE-1J meet on March 22 (1:58.69), and the Lyons Invitational (1:59.19) on March 31. He has also raced on several of the Niwot r...
Even on St. Patrick’s Day, it wasn’t hard to spot the green-clad Niwot athletes competing in the Windsor Invitational, as they were almost always out in front of the pack. On a sunny spring day, tailor made for running fast, both veterans and newcomers set new personal bests in many of the meet’s sprint events, helping both the boys and girls to their second top-ten finishes of the still-early season. “It’s a perfect day,” Niwot head coach Maurice Henriques said. Now in his eighth year, Henri...
In 2016, life handed Niwot distance runner Maggie Smith a big lemon in the form of an injury that kept her out of competitive racing for all but a few weeks of her sophomore year. “It was a big emotional struggle for me because I love running,” said the junior, who took up the sport at Boulder Country Day in first grade. “I realized when it was taken away that it was my personality and my identity.” Fast forward to 2017, and Smith has turned that lemon into lemonade. After several months...
Following his team’s fourth-place finish at the Class 4A State cross country meet last Saturday, Niwot junior Benjamin Bi couldn’t hide his frustration. “We could have done a lot better,” said the junior, who finished 28th with a time of 16 minutes, 38 seconds. “I think we choked a little bit. There really isn’t anything else. We prepared all year. It just wasn’t our day.” Buoyed by a strong performance at the Regional meet in Lyons, the Cougars had their sights set on a top-three finis...
Niwot freshman Taylor James took top honors and junior Maggie Smith put an exclamation point on her comeback this season with an impressive fourth-place finish at the Class 4A Region 3 meet at Lyons H.S. last Thursday. With a time of 19 minutes 27 seconds, Smith finished right behind Valor Christian runners Keely Jones and Taylor Whitfield (2nd and 3rd) to post her first top-five time of the year. Smith and freshman James settled in at the head of the pack early, and led as a tandem until James...
Since their breakout performances in Arizona last month, the Niwot cross country teams have been gearing up for the postseason, which kicks off this week with the Class 4A Region 3 meet at Lyons High on Thursday. The top four teams in that race will advance to the state meet later this month in Colorado Springs. “We’re not going to make a big deal out of beating anyone and everyone,” said Niwot head coach Kelly Christensen of his team’s mindset heading into the regional qualifier, where the Coug...
The Niwot cross country teams turned some heads at the Desert Twilight XC Festival in Casa Grande, AZ last weekend with surprise third-place finishes for both the boys and the girls. More than 100 teams from Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas competed in the meet, which is held on a lighted course after sundown. Niwot’s runners ran in the Sweepstakes race, which featured more than 200 runners from the region’s top cross country programs. Led by freshman Taylor James, who fin...
Running as a pack, the Niwot boys and girls cross country teams both took first place at the RE-1J District meet in convincing fashion. Paced by sophomore Cruz Culpepper, the Niwot boys had five of the race’s ten fastest times to take first place with 21 points. Lyons was second on the day, with 58 points, followed by Mead (60) and Erie (104). Culpepper took second overall with a time of 17 minutes, 51.79 seconds, followed by seniors Ethan Steiner (17:53.15) in third, Oskar Wells (17.55.64) in f...
The Niwot Cougars cross country teams kicked-off their 2017 season Aug. 25 at the Vista Nation XC 2-Mile Invitational in Highlands Ranch. Both Niwot varsity teams finished fourth on the day, with the girls just five points out of second place. Overall, Niwot head coach Kelly Christensen was cheered by the results, although he acknowledged the boys’ performance was “a little flat,” mostly due to a recent spate of illness and minor injuries. “Comparing it to last year, we’re light years ahead of...
The Niwot Cougars cross country teams kicked-off their 2017 season Aug. 25 at the Vista Nation XC 2-Mile Invitational in Highlands Ranch. The small, highly competitive meet attracted many of the state’s top teams and runners, including meet host and Class 5A powerhouse Mountain Vista, as well as perennial 4A favorite Palmer Ridge. Both Niwot varsity teams finished fourth on the day, with the girls just five points out of second place. Overall, Niwot head coach Kelly Christensen was cheered by t...
The Niwot boys tennis program lost seven of its varsity players from 2016, but head coach Miikka Keronen sees no reason why that should keep the Cougars from making another state title run in 2017. “We don’t accept being mediocre,” said Keronen, who had to replace two of his three top singles players and four of his doubles players. “It might take six days a week instead of five days a week, but we’ll figure out how to do it with the kids we have.” That has been Keronen’s philosophy in...
Niwot head cross country coach Kelly Christensen said he is out of the prediction business after his team’s dispiriting finish at last year’s Class 4A state championship meet. “I don’t want to say where I think they’ll be, because last year I said that and we had kind of a meltdown at state,” said the second year head coach. “So I’m just going to keep them healthy and keep them rolling.” But even if he won’t say so explicitly, it’s clear that Christensen believes Niwot has the potential for a s...
FOOTBALL Alex Oelsner (Niwot) is a freshman slotback at Northwestern this fall. Oelsner, who played tight end and linebacker primarily in high school, was second team All-State as a senior. Trey Fleming (Silver Creek) is a senior wide receiver for Black Hills State this fall. Fleming caught 18 passes last year for 289 yards and one touchdown. He has also served as a kicker for Black Hills State, making six of 11 attempts last year, including one from 43 yards out. Former long-time Niwot High...
Don’t look now, but Niwot is becoming a hotbed of world-class youth cycling talent. While Niwot Elementary students Collin Blatchley and Reid Porter were getting ready for the BMX World Championships in South Carolina, Niwot High student Kenny Lang was racing through the rural Canadian countryside in the Tour de l’Abitibi, an international junior road cycling race held each summer in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec. “It was crazy,” said the senior of the seven-stage race held Jul...
Eric Hejl (pronounced “Hail”) has been named the new Niwot High School boys basketball coach, replacing Preston Hardy, who resigned in June for family reasons, including a new baby on the way and club team coaching responsibilities. Hejl, a varsity assistant under Hardy last year and the freshman coach two years ago, will assume the reigns on a one-year interim basis, according to Athletic Director Chase McBride. Hejl works at Lake Valley Golf Course as a PGA apprentice and assistant pro when he is not coaching basketball. He grew up in Ran...
Niwot track stars Mary Gillett and Alexis Carroll traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina last weekend to complete in the New Balance Nationals Outdoor (NBNO), a prestigious invitation-only meet featuring top competitors from around the country. Unfortunately, neither left with results they were probably hoping for. Gillett finished 28th out of 31 in the 400 meter dash, with a time of 57.01 seconds, nearly two seconds slower than her state championship time of 55.12, and more than four seconds...
SOFTBALL Nicki Blue (Niwot) finished her season with a 10-12 win-loss mark for South Carolina, which ended the season with a 34-25 record. Blue was the losing pitcher in a 9-0 loss to fourth-ranked Arizona, allowing six runs in 5.2 innings, as Arizona scored four times in the sixth inning when the South Carolina leftfielder lost a ball in the sun for a run-scoring double. South Carolina was ranked number 24 at the time and lost in the Regional final. Blue tied for fifth all-time in South...
Niwot wrestling star Tommy Stager has amassed an impressive collection of titles over the past several months; state champion; first team all-state; Eagle Scout. And now the future Air Force Falcon can add one more: MaxPreps High School Athlete of the Year. For the 2016-2017 school year, MaxPreps partnered with the U.S. Marine Corps to recognize one male and one female high school athlete who represent “those outstanding qualities that make not just great athletes, but more importantly fine citi...
Jenna McCaffrey When Niwot senior distance runner Jenna McCaffrey started weighing her post-high school options last year, Arizona was the furthest place from her mind. “I was never really looking into going to school in Arizona, because it’s so hot there,” she said. Instead, the four-year member of both the cross country and track teams at Niwot looked into options closer to home, including Colorado School of Mines and CSU. Then a former running coach suggested she take a look at North...
Rosemary Morrissey is looking forward to getting back on her mountain bike this summer to get back in training for cyclo-cross competition. Morrissey, a sophomore at Niwot High School, finished seventh at USA Cycling Nationals in Hartford, CN, January 8th in the Women’s Junior 15-16 division, after winning the Colorado state title. Cyclo-cross combines cross-country running with biking, Morrissey explained, comparing it to a steeplechase. “The races usually last 40 minutes,” she said. “You...
HOCKEY One of the country’s top collegiate hockey players, Andrew Sturtz of Penn State, is the nephew of Niwot residents Brad and Jane Langdon. Sturtz is from Buffalo, NY, and is currently a sophomore forward for the Nittany Lions. As a freshman, he led the team in goals with 18, which was the fifth-most in the country by a freshman. The performance earned him the freshman of the year award. His first goal for Penn State was named the NCAA’s No. 1 Play of the Week on Oct. 23, 2015, coming agains...
Despite a 25th-place finish at last year’s Class 4A State Championship meet, Niwot girls swimming head coach Sarah Stamp doesn’t think her team is in a rebuilding mode. “If you look at our season last year, we placed in the top five at invites and won most of our duals,” she said. “We had a lot of strong swimmers, just not enough to get us to that top ten placement at state,” Coach Stamp, however, is optimistic that this year she has the depth that will help her team down the stretch. “O...
With barely time to catch their breath after the state championship meet late last month, several runners from the Niwot boys and girls cross country teams traveled to Casa Grande, AZ, for the Nike Cross Nationals Southwest Regional on Nov. 19. More than 2,500 runners from teams in Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah competed in the meet, one of eight regional qualifying events for the Nike Cross National Championship coming up on Dec. 3 in Portland, Ore. Colorado was well represented...
BASEBALL Sean Ratliff (Niwot) began his professional coaching career as hitting coach for the Kingsport Mets in 2015. In 2016 Ratliff moved up to the Brooklyn Cyclones, the short-season Class A affiliate of the Mets. And this fall he coached in the Instructional League, where his prize pupil, Tim Tebow, homered on the first pitch he saw. Ratliff was drafted by the Mets out of Stanford University, where he starred in the College World Series. He worked his way up to Class AA in the Mets organization, and appeared in several spring training...
Going into last weekend’s Class 4A state volleyball tournament at the Denver Coliseum, Cougars senior outside hitter Sarah Falk said her team was thrilled to be headed to be playing on the big stage. “The team is definitely really excited. It’s been such a fun year, and we just want to take it to that next level.” Falk, who earlier in the week signed a letter of intent to play volleyball at Sacramento State, said her team was also looking forward to the weekend’s match against rival Holy Fami...
Going into last weekend’s Class 4A state volleyball tournament at the Denver Coliseum, Cougars senior outside hitter Sarah Falk said her team was thrilled to be headed to be playing on the big stage. “The team is definitely really excited. It’s been such a fun year, and we just want to take it to that next level.” Falk, who earlier in the week signed a letter of intent to play volleyball at Sacramento State, said her team was also looking forward to the weekend’s match against rival Holy Fami...
