On Sunday, Addy Ritzenhein of Niwot High School (CO) announced her verbal commitment to Northern Arizona University.

The junior is one of the first high profile athletes from the class of 2026 to make their commitment. Further, she is the first 2026 commit for newly appointed NAU Head Coach Jarred Cornfield.

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Cornfield will officially take over the program in July 2025 when the current Director of Cross Country & Track and Field Mike Smith is set to depart from the program. Smith will transition into coaching a professional group for Nike.

In a lot of ways, the addition of Ritzenhein is an important first step for Cornfield in solidifying the culture that he helped build at NAU. He is in his ninth year as an assistant coach at NAU and started as a graduate assistant coach in 2015.

Ritzenhein is the daughter of three-time Olympian and former 5,000m American record holder Dathan Ritzenhein. However, she is not defined by her fathers accolades, and has quickly blossomed into one of the nation’s best high school distance runners.

This fall, she won the 5A Colorado State Cross Country Championship, placed second at NXR Southwest and finished fifth at Nike Cross Nationals. Ritzenhein also took home the NXN girls individual titles in 2023 as just a sophomore.

On the track, Ritzenhein holds personal bests of 4:42.56 for the mile and 10:12.78 at the 2-mile distance.

Though she still has a year and a half at the high school level, she will presumably mesh well with the current regime at NAU.

The Ritzenhein signing is crucial to the program’s future for two reasons.

1. Momentum

With the addition of Ritzenhein, NAU has secured one of the highest sought-after prospects from the 2026 class. With that, NAU has established the strength of its recruiting class and it will allow them to center attention on recruiting other prospective student-athletes, and also utilize Ritzenhein’s name as a springboard.

It’s worked similarly with collegiate distance programs in recent memory. Last year on the men’s side, several of the top high school recruits committed to Notre Dame after 2-mile indoor national record holder Drew Griffith made his commitment to the university. The Irish capitalized on Griffith’s early signing, and perhaps we could see something similar develop for NAU’s 2026 class.

2. NAU Will Be Reloading

Many think that Ritzenhein could be the next big name in American distance running. And if you’re a part of that club, then it is pretty easy to rationalize why her addition is helpful.

NAU will be cycling a lot of its current front-running talent. They’ll need a solid crop of underclassmen to help refresh and reload, and Ritzenhein is the first step for a program looking to retain its strength at the national level.

 NAU placed fourth at the NCAA DI Cross Country Championship in November with an upperclassmen-heavy top seven. Five of the athletes on that starting squad are classified as juniors and seniors, so it's unlikely that Addy will race with more than one or two of them.

The Lumberjacks had two sophomores – Keira Moore and Karrie Baloga – rounding out their group at this past year’s NCAA XC Championships. By the time they’re seniors, Ritzenhein will be in the fold.

2026 will be a turnkey year for NAU.

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