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Emma Wilson cruises to repeat state XC title
TERRE HAUTE — A lot of words can describe Emma Wilson and her illustrious high school cross country career, which concluded on Saturday with her second straight state championship.
Greencastle coach Craig Jordan found a pretty fitting adjective.
“Emma is amazing,” he said. “She ran a great race to become the first girl in Indiana history to repeat 5K cross country state titles. She did a great job of focusing on herself and minimizing external pressure.”
Wilson led at each of the five one-kilometer marks, and gradually pulled away from the pack.
At the 1K mark, she was tied with two other runners and two others were within two seconds of her.
“We wanted to see how everyone else was going to start out,” Wilson said. “After the first 1K, I was able to just settle in and take it from there. I felt pretty good going into the race, but you never know how it’s going to go.”
Her slowest split was the second one, which was 3:42, but she finished strongly with times of 3:37, 3:39 and 3:39 over the final three 1K parts of the race.
“She approached this race like any other despite it being the state finals,” Jordan said. “She’s got big goals for the post season, so we’ve taken a different approach this year that doesn’t prioritize the state meet. For her to pick up another state title, while going undefeated during the IHSAA season, along the way was phenomenal.”
Wilson admits feeling “excited” as she crossed the finish line.
“I wanted to push as hard as I could to win,” she said.
Wilson was also honored by the IHSAA with the mental attitude for girls’ cross country, which did not surprise Jordan.
“She’s an incredibly hard-working and humble student-athlete, so it was a great honor for her to receive the Mental Attitude Award on top of everything,” Jordan said.
Wilson was pleased she was able to win again, and credited Jordan for helping her to achieve her successes.
“Coach and I have been working really hard all season, and it was my goal to repeat this year,” she said. “I was just trying to not put pressure on myself and do my best.”
Even though there were thousands of spectators lining the course, Wilson was able to hear the encouragement from her family members and teammates.
“It definitely helps,” she said.
Wilson has run the LaVern Gibson Championship Course, where the state finals have been held since 2004, numerous times.
The weather on Saturday was warm and sunny, for this time of year, with just a little wind.
“It’s a pretty nice course, and it’s easy to figure out the loops and the turns,” she said. “The weather doesn’t really affect me too much. It wasn’t too bad today.”
Wilson shies away from heaping praise on herself, but does feel a strong sense of accomplishment.
“I never expected all this to happen,” she said. “I just wanted to do my best and see what happened.”
Wilson’s winning time of 17:53.9 was 6.7 seconds faster than that of runnerup Erin Strzelecki of Fort Wayne Bishop Dwenger. Last year’s runnerup, Phoebe Bates of Carmel, was injured during the race and finished 49th.
Wilson was one of two runners from the Western Indiana Conference to finish in the top three, with Edgewood sophomore Annalyssa Crain taking third place in a time of 18:18.6..
Edgewood senior Austin Hackett was the only WIC runner in the boys’ race, and he earned all-star honors again by placing seventh in a time of 15:53.8.
Wilson announced on Saturday that she will be running collegiately at the University of Illinois, becoming the first Putnam County runner to run for the Champaign, Ill., school since Cassie Hunt of North Putnam in the early 2000s. Wilson said she will be signing her national letter-of-intent next month.
She will not take much of a break after her victory, and will continue her training for a pair of upcoming national meets.
Last year on the same LaVern Gibson course and qualified for the nationals, where the placed 14th to earn All-American honors. She may also run in the New Balance national series.
