Weatherford lead GHS girls' to county win

Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Greencastle captured the 2012 Putnam County Cross Country Meet Tuesday. Members of the winning team include Colleen Weatherford, Kayla Cash, Alex Stoffregen, Hannah Brattain, Sammie Haynes, Corrie Romer and Abigail Wilson.

By TRENT SCOTT

For the Banner Graphic

The Putnam County girls' cross country meet ran just like the last five races that preceded it.

Greencastle took home their sixth straight county title with a team score of 23, outlasting second place South Putnam, 52 points, and third place Cloverdale, who finished with 61 points. North Putnam did not have a team score.

Colleen Weatherford collected her fourth straight Putnam County title, winning the girls' race in a time of 19:49.96. Cloverdale's Claudia Monnett was second, followed by Kayla Cash and Alex Stoffregen of Greencastle.

Amillia Nally of Cloverdale finished fifth, followed by South Putnam's Mallory Glaze. Hannah Brattain and Sammie Haynes finished seventh and eighth to close out Greencastle's scoring. Katie Douglas was the highest finished for North Putnam in 17th place.

Greencastle girls' head coach Garry Anderson was quick to point out that Weatherford was the first four-time county champion in the girls' race.

"I'm sure she's very proud of it and I'm proud of her and the school will be also. This is quite an honor and hopefully she can do the same thing on Saturday in the WCC meet," Anderson said.

Anderson said that the squad also made a new milestone for the county.

"We're also the first school to win six straight titles for the girls, which is pretty nice, too. I thought the weather held off for us. It wasn't too overly bad for the kids to run in," Anderson said.

"We got a heck of a race out of Kayla Cash and Alex Stoffregen. Stoffregen had her best race of the year today and she's had three really nice races recently.

"Freshmen Hannah Brattain and Corrie Romer both did well. I think on the day the whole team did well," Anderson added.

Anderson said the squad would be back to work Wednesday and that they would be ready to go again on Saturday.

"It's going to be cold but we're not backing off yet. We had a hard practice last night and we'll go back to training again tomorrow night," Anderson said.

"We won't taper for a while but our goal is still to win the conference and put as many girls as we can into the top ten."

South Putnam head coach Brandon Welti was pleased with the races and said that he wanted to see the same on Saturday.

"The girls ran really well. Mentally they were excited about the meet. Mallory Glaze had a great performance. Madie Egold was under the weather but still ran alright," Welti said.

"As a whole, everybody ran well and improved a little bit. I'm definitely pleased with them.

"It's going to be Greencastle up front and we're just going to try to keep racing well and improve. We're going to plan it like we did today and continue to improve.

Cloverdale head coach Kyle Walter said that his two seniors lead the squad admirably.

"Claudia Monnett and Amillia Nally both ran great. They really responded well today and all the girls did well," Walter said.

"Our plans for Saturday are the same as today.

Hopefully, now that we've seen the course again, we'd like to get a better result. We've come a long way since the beginning of the year and hopefully we can carry this into Saturday."

North Putnam head coach Kevin Lutes said his racers were starting to hit their stride.

"They did well. Katie got her best time of the year and I was very pleased with her. Our other two runners didn't get their best times today but they are moving in that direction," Lutes said.

"We just need to go out and run our own race. The hardest thing we fight with is trying to keep people from going out faster than what they should be.

"If they start out too fast, they'll be shot for the rest of the race so if they can rein it in during the first mile, the things we've been doing the rest of the year will kick in and we'll be alright."

In the middle school race, Greencastle was narrowly denied a perfect score, winning the meet on 16 points, followed by North Putnam's 51. Cloverdale finished third on 70 and South Putnam rounded out the scoring with a 103.

Emma Wilson won the race for Greencastle with a time of 12:47.12. Seelye Stoffregen finished second, followed by Sydney Lewis and Katie Haynes for the Tiger Cubs.

Maddie McHugh broke up the perfect round by finishing fifth, followed by Greencastle's Grace Smith in sixth and North Putnam's Allison Bayless in seventh and Alanna Nunez in eighth. Cloverdale was paced by Payton Lyons' ninth place finish.

At South Putnam

Putnam County Girls' Cross Country Meet

1. Greencastle 23, 2. South Putnam 52, 3. Cloverdale 61, 4. North Putnam INC

1. Weatherford (G) 19:49; 2. Monnet (C) 20:43; 3. Cash (G) 21:14; 4. Stoffregen (G) 21:55; 5. Nally (C) 21:56; 6. Glaze (SP) 21:58; 7. Brattain (G) 22:14; 8. S. Haynes (G) 22:25; 9. DeLano (SP) 22:36; 10. Romer (G) 23:00

Middle School

1. Greencastle 16, 2. North Putnam 51, 3. Cloverdale 70, 4. South Putnam 103

1. Wilson (G) 12:47; 2. Stoffregen (G) 13:12; 3. Lewis (G) 13:15; 4. Haynes (G) 13:27; 5. McHugh (SP) 13:57; 6. Smith (G) 14:37; 7. Bayless (NP) 14:45; 8. Nunez (NP) 14:46; 9. Lyons (C) 14:47; 10. Spencer (NP) 15:01

Next Meet: The WCC Cross Country meet takes place on Saturday at South Putnam High School, starting at 10 a.m.