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Favorites Wilson, Vittetow take titles
Tiger Cub girls, Eagle boys win team honors
The individual favorites prevailed in Tuesday’s Putnam County varsity cross country meets at South Putnam, while Greencastle easily defeated South Putnam to win the girls’ team title and the Eagles returned the favor by winning a close race in the boys’ team competition.
Greencastle sophomore Emma Wilson won the girls’ race in 22:12, five seconds ahead of teammate Shelby Kallem.
Kieffer Vittetow, a South Putnam senior, captured the boys’ title in 17:37, defeating Greencastle’s Clayton Wilson by 21 seconds on his home course.
Greencastle’s girls placed seven runners in the top 10, taking up four of the seven all-county spots.
Besides Wilson and Kallem, others earning all-county honors were Sydney Kallem and Mika Mozawa of Greencastle, Chelsie Edwards of Cloverdale and Maddie McHugh and Ally Nichols of South Putnam.
Neither Cloverdale nor North Putnam had enough runners to be in the team competition.
Taylor Hensley was the top North Putnam runner, finishing 13th in 27:01.
In the boys’ race, South Putnam had three of the top five runners and five of the top 10 in recording the three-point victory.
Besides Vittetow, the Eagles had Logan Vandermark (fourth) and Austin Rumley (fifth) to earn all-county honors. Others in the top seven besides Wilson were Cameron Lewis of Greencastle (third), Chad Stevens of Cloverdale (sixth) and Braden Pershing of Greencastle (seventh).
Greencastle co-coaches Mark Jedele and Craig Jordan were mostly happy with the day’s events.
“We couldn’t have asked for better weather for the meet,” they said. “South Putnam’s course was well groomed, and we liked the adjustments they made to the course this year.
“We were very happy with our girls’ performance as a team,” Jedele and Jordan said. “With the conference meet on Saturday, we held back our runners so that we could pack up for as long as possible.”
Jordan and Jedele were not happy with the focus of the boys’ team.
“For the most part we were very happy with the boys’ team performance,” they said. “Taking second place stung quite a bit, and we feel that some of our runners were not mentally in the race.
“We’ve got a few guys that’ll be taking the SAT this Saturday so we’re just trying to regroup and get prepared for the state tournament.”
South Putnam coach Brandon Welti’s squad had not run in a meet since Sept. 13, and despite winning the boys’ team title he felt that fact contributed to an effort below expectations.
“It was a rough night overall,” Welti said. “Not racing in two weeks set us back a bit mentally. We ran kind of flat and stale, but it was expected.”
Still, the team persevered and was able to pull out the victory.
“The effort was still really good, and I’m pleased with how everyone pushed themselves,” Welti said. “We know that there’s more in the tank, so we’re looking forward to seeing how much we can improve in the next few meets.”
North Putnam coach Kevin Lutes had praise for his only entrant in the boys’ race.
“Kyle Young lowered his personal record by almost 10 seconds on the hilliest course we’ve yet to run,” Lutes said.
Soccer standout Kaelynn Abner made her season debut for the girls’ squad.
“Kaelynn hasn’t been able to run for us until [Tuesday] due to conflicting soccer games,” he said. “She’s also had problems with a pulled quad muscle, but she came out and ran tough.
“Our girls, though no one ran their fastest time, were not too far away from accomplishing that. That should boost their confidence.”
Cloverdale had both individual winners in the middle school championships and also brought home the boys’ team title.
Brady Koosman of the Clovers won the boys’ race in 12:21 as Cloverdale had the top three finishers and five of the top 11 to defeat runnerup North Putnam by 32 points.
Abigail Nees of Cloverdale won the girls’ race in 13:41, but South Putnam edged the Clovers by two points for the team title.
South Putnam only had one runner in the top six but had four of the top 10 and five of the top 12 finishers.
Girls’ varsity race
__Team scores — Greencastle 18, South Putnam 43 (Cloverdale and North Putnam did not field full teams)
Top seven (all-county) — 1. Emma Wilson (G) 22:12, 2. Shelby Kallem (G) 22:17, 3. Sydney Kallem (G) 22:18, 4. Chelsie Edwards (C) 22:46.54, 5. Maddie McHugh (SP) 22:46.94, 6. Mika Mozawa (G) 23:20, 7. Ally Nichols (SP) 23:30
Other Greencastle runners — 8. Arianna Pershing 23:55, 9. Sydney Lewis 24:17, 10. Katie Haynes 24:51, 16. Abigail King 31:00
Other South Putnam runners — 11. Samara Young 25:54, 12. Rachel Jones 26:07, 14. Addi Blaydes 28:33
North Putnam runners — 13. Taylor Hensley 27:01, 15. Sydney Sims 29:24, 17. Kaelynn Abner 33:34, 18. Amber Schubert 37:16
Boys’ varsity race
Team scores — South Putnam 29, Greencastle 32, Cloverdale 71 (North Putnam did not field a full team)
Top seven (all-county) — 1. Kieffer Vittetow (SP) 17:37, 2. Clayton Wilson (G) 17:58, 3. Cameron Lewis (G) 18:08, 4. Logan Vandermark (SP) 18:22, 5. Austin Rumley (SP) 18:25, 6. Chad Stevens (C) 18:44, 7. Braden Pershing (G) 18:55
Other Greencastle runners — 8. Ben Gellman 18:58, 12. Preston Headley 19:40, 13. Jacob Crawley 19:52, 20. Tylan Jones 20:58, 22. Justin Berish 21:03
Other South Putnam runners — 9. Karl Egold 19:12, 10. Michael Crossman 19:27, 11. Dru Bottorff 19:29, 15. Eric Hinkle 20:08, 19. Blake Clearwaters 20:51, 21. Andrew Carr 21:00, 26. Adair Bock 21:55, 27. Daniel Johnson 22:22
Other Cloverdale runners — 14. Nolan Maners 20:04, 16. Eddie Mannan 20:12, 17. Rylan Hall 20:18, 18. Ryan Heavener 20:48, 23. Elliott Williamson 21:18, 25. Andrew Monnett 21:41
North Putnam runner — 24. Kyle Young 21:21
Girls’ middle school race
Team scores — South Putnam 40, Cloverdale 42, North Putnam 66, Greencastle 75
Top 20 — 1. Abigail Nees (C) 13:41, 2. Kennedy Trigg (G) 13:57, 3. Lilly Vittetow (SP) 14:19, 4. Anna Haste (NP) 14:39, 5. Ella Szczerbik (C) 14:44, 6. Lily Monnett (C) 14:46, 7. Lilyan Barker (SP) 14:59, 8. Sarah Jones 15:07, 9. Grace Elmore 15:10, 10. Catherine Hodge (SP) 15:11, 11. Ember Keck (NP) 15:22, 12. Ally Menke (SP) 15:25, 13. Kiersten Wade (C) 15:32, 14. Michalya Dinn (G) 15:56, 15. Josie Teipen (SP) 16:05, 16. Katie Fry (NP) 16:20, 17. Chloe Couch (C) 16:21, 18. Olivia Headley (G) 16:32.33, 18. Kylee Scott (SP) 16:32.95, 19. Kylee Scott (SP) 16:32.95, 20. Brooke Boswell (G) 16:45.02
Boys’ middle school race
Team scores — Cloverdale 24, North Putnam 56, South Putnam 62, Greencastle 84
Top 20 —1. Brady Koosman (C) 12:21, 2. Nathaniel Nees (C) 12:35, 3. Isaac Maldanado (C) 12:41, 4. Zach Huff (NP) 12:46, 5. Caden Storm (NP) 12:52, 6. Ian Frank (G) 13:13, 7. Eli Kelley (C) 13:25, 8. Lee Haywood (SP) 13:37, 9. Eli Smith (SP) 13:41, 10. Brent Wiggins (SP) 13:42, 11. Max Kaufman (C) 13:43, 12. Ellis Lyons (NP) 13:50, 13. Cole Hutcheson (G) 14:01, 14. Justin Evans (G) 14:02, 15. Levi Hilton (C) 14:09, 16. Braydon Monnett (NP) 14:18, 17. Clay Cash (SP) 14:32, 18. Tyler Adams (SP) 14:34, 19. Jacob Farrington 14:39.31, 20. Bryce Wiggins (SP) 14:39.66
