Greencastle Tiger Cubs face challenge at Terre Haute cross country invite

Kennedy Trigg, wearing her medal, placed 2nd in the open class cross country race at the Lavern Gibson course in Terre Haute on Saturday, Sept. 7. She is a member of the TZ team. With her in photo is teammate Andrew Thede. (Courtesy photo)

Kat King, Megan Haynes, Alex Stoffregen, Sammi Haynes, Brittany Love and Corrie Romer pose after their race on Saturday. (Courtesy photo)

TERRE HAUTE -- Greencastle's boys' and girls' teams, with seven freshmen or sophomores combined, jumped into the deep water Saturday in the Terre Haute Savings Bank Invitational at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course.

Instead of running in the Class A-3A race, Greencastle's boys took on top-ranked and defending state champion Carmel, Valparaiso and private schools like Brebeuf Jesuit, while the girls faced powerful Terre Haute North, Center Grove and Jasper in the Varsity Race.

"You're going to run with the big dogs when the (state tournament) races start in October and November. Why not start now?" GHS coach Garry Anderson said. "I don't want to run with the little dogs. The kids all understood this going into this. They were content doing that.

"We did it last year. We had a pretty good girls' team last year and chose the bigger schools and it worked out real well for us."

Carmel won the boys meet 36-86 over Valparaiso. Greencastle finished 17th in the 23-team field, beating Plainfield, Bedford-North Lawrence, Northview, Union Home School, Decatur Central and Evansville Mater Dei.

Terre Haute North won the girls' meet 65-94 over Center Grove. The young Tiger Cubs finished 12th in the 17-team field, beating Decatur Central, Ben Davis, Evansville Mater Dei, Northview and Danville.

Comparing the Greencastle girls' and boys' times from last year at this time in the season on the same course, Anderson believes the Tiger Cubs are on the right path for the state tournament series.

"We're comparable right now, and we will slowly make the decline and our times will start dropping now. Our practices are all set up to where we are working toward tournament time," Anderson said.

Elijah Brattain

Junior Elijah Brattain led Greencastle's boys, finishing 67th in the field of 227 runners with a time of 17:54.1. Freshman Clayton Wilson cracked the GHS top-25 record book in 17:59.1 for 77th place. Taylor Secrest finished 83rd in 18:10.5, followed by Levi Lewis 156th in 19:37.4 and freshman Jacob Crawley rounded out the Tiger Cubs' scoring in 176th place in 20:22.3.

"With the freshmen we had in the lineup, I'm ecstatic (with our performance)," Anderson said. "These young guys have been busting their butts and the older guys have been helping them and we're getting someplace now."

Sophomore Corrie Romer led the Greencastle girls' effort in 47th place with a run of 22:15.1. Junior Brittany Love finished 57th in 22:44.5, followed by Samantha Hayes in 71st at 23:12.9, Alex Stoffregen 80th in 23:25.7 and Megan Hayes 87th in 23:51.6.

Stoffregen and Megan Hayes, seniors, are the only returnees from the last year's successful team.

"I think our girls did okay. A lot of folks don't realize we lost our No. 1 runner, our No. 2 runner (and) our No. 3 runner from last year," Anderson said. "We're down now to the girls who were our fourth, fifth and sixth runners and we have no freshmen. So I think we're doing an adequate job and we'll get better yet."

Greencastle Middle School's Emma Wilson may have turned in the most impressive performance of the day by winning the Middle School Varsity race by 48 seconds. There wasn't another runner in sight when Wilson crossed the finish line in 11:06.1.

Terre Haute Savings Bank Invitational
Boys Varsity Race
Team scores: 1. Carmel (Car) 36; 2. Valparaiso (Val) 86; 3. Brebeuf (Bref) 96; 4. Cathedral (Cath) 144; 5. Zionsville (Zv) 153; 6. Terre Haute South (THS) 181; 7. Homestead (Hom) 220; 8. Seymour (Sey) 221; 9. Ben Davis (BD) 273; 10. Terre Haute North (THN) 324; 11. Center Grove (CG) 338; 12. Castle (Cas) 380; 13. Evansville Memorial (EM) 422; 14. Evansville North (EN) 442; 15. Danville (Dv) 446; 16. Jasper (Jas) 454; 17. Greencastle (Gc) 459; 18. Plainfield (Pf) 483; 19. Bedford-North Lawrence (BNL) 501; 20. Northview (Nv) 507; 21. Union Homeschool (UH) 547; 22. Decatur Central (557); 23. Evansville Mater Dei (EMD) 674.

Top 20 Runners: 1. Zack Snider (Bref) 15:50.8; 2. Brayden Law (Hom) 16:04.1; 3. Benjamin Veatch (Car) 16:05; 4. David Dalton (Greenwood) 16:06; 5. Adam George (Cath) 16:08.9; 6. Jarit Perking (Barr-Reeve) 16:18.3; 7. Robert Browning (Car) 16:21.6; 8. Michael George (Car) 16:26.6; 9. Riley Stohler (THS) 16:27.4; 10. Nathan Wilkey (Bref) 16:29.0; 11. Corey Alfredson (Val) 16:30.4; 12. Kyle Hook (Car) 16:30.8; 13. Quentin Pierce (Cas) 16:31.2; 14. Joshua Horowitz (Car) 16:32.3; 15. Aristotle Coulopoulos (Val) 16:38.6; 16. Patrick O'Neil (Cath) 16:42.8; 17. Will Coffey (Bref) 16:44; 18. Thomas Revard (Car) 16:32.3; 19. Benjamin Anderson (Car) 16:46.6; 20. Spencer Danielson (THS) 16:47.7.

Greencastle -- 67. Elijah Brattain 17:54.1; 77. Clayton Wilson 17:59.7; 83. Taylor Secrest 18:10.5; 156. Levi Lewis 19:37.4; 176. Jacob Crawley 20:22.3; 188. Peyton Jones 20:43.2; 190. Cameron Lewis 20:49.5; 200. Braden Pershing 21:10.3; 205. Justin Painter 21:28.6; 217. Ichiro Mozowa 23.50.4.

Girls Varsity Race
Team scores: 1. Terre Haute North (THN) 65; 2. Center Grove (CG) 94; 3. Jasper (Jas) 123; 4. Evansville Memorial (EM) 155; 5. Seymour (Sey) 166; 6. Terre Haute South (THS) 180; 7. Plainfield (Pf) 194; 8. Cathedral (Cath) 199; 9. Evansville North (EN) 211; 10. Perry Meridian (PM) 22; 11. Castle 260 (Cas) 12. Greencastle (Gc) 310; 13. Decatur Central (DC) 349; 14. Ben Davis (BD) 357; 15. Evansville Mater Dei (EMD) 370; 16. Northview (Nv) 505; 17. Danville (Dv) 507.

Top 20 Runners: 1. Zoey Johnson (Sey) 19:07.5; 2. Kieran Casey (PM) 19:19.2; 3. Sam Woodford (Pf) 19:37.2; 4. Valerie Clark (CG) 19:41.0; 5. Amy Carpenter (DC) 19:46.2; 6. Shannon Effron (EM) 19:49.2; 7. Ellen Flood (Cath) 19:53.2; 8. Hannah Welsh (Jas) 19:55.2; 9. Jessi Conley (THN) 20:25.8; 10. Deon Zeck (THN) 20:25.8; 11. Sarah Wargel (EM) 20:28.5; 12. Larua Johnson (THN) 20:29.0; 13. Tara Cassidy (Jas) 20:32.8; 14. Lindsay Welker (THN) 20:36.5; 15. Madison Hays (Sey) 20:37.1; 16. Shelbi Dishman (CG) 20:39.0; 17. Abby Tuttle (CG) 20:45.1; 18. Allie Rollins (EN) 20:50.2; 19. Connie Brahm (BD) 20:53.0; 20. Hannah Bunch (THN) 20:56.0.

Greencastle -- 47. Corrie Romer 22:15.1; 57. Brittany Love 22:44.5; 71. Samantha Haynes 23:12.9; 80. Alex Stoffregen 23.25.7; 87. Megan Haynes 23:51.6; 132. Katherina King 25:43.4.

Seelye Stoffregen, Sydney Lewis and Emma Wilson pose after their race on Saturday. Wilson won the girls' middle school race by a wide margin. (Courtesy photo)

Middle School Invitational
Boys Race
Team scores: 1. North Oldham 31; 2. Honey Creek 63; 3. Woodrow Wilson 88; 4. Greencastle 89; 5. North Clay 105; 6. West Vigo 171.

Winner: Carson Kline (Honey Creek) 11:00.9.

Greencastle Middle School: 4. Ben Gellman 11:20.4; 14. Preston Headley 11:59.8; 21. Jackson Kendall 12:23.8; 25. Tylan Jones 12:35.1; 34. Justin Berish 13:38.6; 41. Donovan Asbell 14:28.3; 45. Brandon Mitchell 15:10.2; 54. Tyler Hopper 17:23.7; 59. Aidan O'Brien 18:33.4; 60. Henry Carter 19.31.6; 61. Josh Derringer 21:30.7; 62. Rylan Piatt 22:19.4.

Girls Race
Team scores: 1. Barr Reeve 57; 2. North Oldham 60; 3. Honey Creek 80; 4. Woodrow Wilson 84; 5. Greencastle 110; 6. North Clay 137; 7. St. Patrick 188; West Vigo 197.

Winner: Emma Wilson (Greencastle Middle School) 11:06.1.

Greencastle Middle School: 6. Seelye Stoffreggen 13:00.0; 7. Sydney Lewis 13:00.8; 53. Mika Mozawa 15:50.1; 56. Keeghan Mclain 17:06.4; 67. Michiru Mashimo 20:32.1; 69. Christlynn Jones 21:22.4.