Lamar High School Senior Joel Davis places third in State Cross Country Championship

Lamar Thunder XC runner Joel Davis running in the state championship meet – Photo courtesy of Tim McDonald

Joel Davis, a Lamar High School senior, had the distinction of earning third place in the recent Colorado State Cross Country Championships held at Norris Penrose Event Center in Colorado Springs on November 1, 2025.  He qualified for the state meet by placing 2^nd at the Regional Meet on October 23.  Teammate Myles Northrup placed 7^th to automatically qualify as well.  The top 4 teams also qualify, and the Lamar Thunder boys scored 4^th as a team to punch their ticket to state.

This is Joel’s 4^th trip to the state meet.  As a freshman and sophomore, he qualified as an individual, along with teammate Cole Krug.  As a freshman, Joel placed 51^st.  In his Sophomore year, he placed 23^rd.  Last year, as a Junior, Joel and his team qualified for the state meet which was a big event, as a Lamar cross country team had not gone to the state event as a team for 7 years.  The meet that year was also special for coaches Davis and Krum, who had gone to the state meet as teammates on the Lamar team 11 years prior to this. As an individual, Joel was able to achieve 5th place last year.

This past year, Joel has spent time training since June and worked very hard with eyes on another trip to state and hoping to place even higher.  This season, he broke the school record (previously held by Cole Krug) early in the season at the Rocky Ford meet on 8/29/25 with a time of 15:45.6.  He then went on to break his own personal best record three more times this season.  On September 12, at the Lamar meet, he bested his time to 15:43 and then eight days later, on September 20 at the Coronado Cougar Classic, he lowered his time to 15:46.50.  September 25 at the Canon City Royal Gorge meet he took significant time off, finishing with a time of 15:32.50.

There was a great field of runners in the 3A state meet.  The top 5 positions could have gone to any of several runners.  As the race started, Joel took the lead through the first mile with runners all around him.  He handled the hill with ease, but as he finished mile 2, he had fallen to the 4^th position but was just behind the leaders.  At the river crossing, now in third place, Joel came through strongly, knowing there was one more hill and then a turn into the finish area.  He powered up the last hill and was gaining on Ethan Merrick from Alamosa.  As he made the turn into the area as the crowd cheered, Joel gave it one last surge and finished with a time of 16:07.8, just fractions of a second behind Merrick.

Joel is the son of Kenneth and Mindy Davis of Lamar.  He hopes to attend Western Colorado University in Gunnison to run D2 in the RMAC Conference and is planning on pursuing a degree in business. He would like to thank everyone for their support and said he has truly loved being a Lamar Thunder XC runner and representing Lamar.

By: Barbara Crimond