Many of state’s elite runners to compete at Shelbyville semistate

Twelve athletes from Putnam County will be competing today in the IHSAA semistate cross country meet at Blue River Park in Shelbyville, with their eyes set on advancing to next Saturday’s state finals in Terre Haute.

South Putnam’s boys team is the only locally advancing team from the Ben Davis regional last weekend.

Six other athletes earned a trip to the semistate by being among the top 10 individuals in the regional not on advancing teams.

Highlighting that list is Greencastle sophomore Emma Wilson, who is looking to return to the state finals for the second straight year.

Wilson won the Ben Davis regional last week with a time of 18:09.91. That time is the sixth best from last week among all participants in the 16 regionals.

Four of those runners with better times, however, will compete with Wilson for the Shelbyville girls’ semistate — making this semistate easily the state’s toughest.

The second-place finisher in the Noblesville regional, Christina Geisler of Carmel, had a time of 17:53.31 that was the third best in the state last weekend.

Course difficulty, weather and the closeness of the race are all factors which can affect the times.

Southport’s Erin Sullivan, who had the state’s fourth-best time last weekend, has the advantage of returning to the same course where she won last weekend.

Wilson doesn’t concern herself with who else is running or what their times were last week.

She strives to do her best each week, and that has worked well for her.

“It’s been a good year,” Wilson said. “It’s been better training [with co-head coaches Mark Jedele and Craig Jordan]. We have run more miles than in the past.”

Wilson admits she took some pleasure in defeating Avon’s Taylor Nicholson in last week’s regional, getting revenge for Nicholson’s victory in that race a year ago.

She hopes to run with the front girls today and “see how I do,” hopefully surpassing her personal best time of 17:43.

“It’s possible to do it, because of all the good runners who will be there,” she said. “It’s easier to get a good time when there are people ahead of you.”

Wilson’s brother, Clayton, is making his second straight semistate trip.

He finished the regional last week as the fourth-best runner from a non-advancing team.

“I think our season has gone well with our new coaches,” he said. “I’ve been trying to qualify for the semistate throughout the whole season. My times were slow at the beginning, but they have been dropping lately.”

Wilson said the co-coaches have been working toward that goal.

“We have had more of a focus on harder workouts a couple of days a week and more recovery time in between,” he said. “It’s been different having co-head coaches, but I like it.”

He knows it will be tough to qualify for the state finals, but hopes to break 16:30 this week. His best time is 16:41.

“I haven’t run at this week’s course before,” he said. “I’ve heard it’s fast.”

Shelby Kallem is Greencastle’s other female qualifier, having finished as the seventh best at-large runner last week.

“I was hoping to be able to go the semistate, but I wanted to go as a team, though,” she said. “This week I want to run a really good time, and maybe get into state.”

Her best time at the 3.1 miles run in Indiana high schools is 18:10. She and her family moved to Greencastle last summer from Illinois, where the races are exactly miles and her time was a little bit less.

“I’ve been running a little bit slower this year,” she said. “I think the change in training programs has caused that, but they’ve been building toward the end of the year. I haven’t peaked yet.“

Kallem enjoys having such an elite talent as Wilson on her team to push her toward better times.

“She usually goes out really fast, and I can’t catch her,” Kallem said. “She’s very disciplined, and very humble. She just loves to run.”

Cameron Lewis of Greencastle agrees with Kallem on one point.

“My goal was to keep running at this point, but I wish our whole team could have made it,” he said.

Lewis made it to the regional last year.

“The last race was my best time, but toward the beginning of the season they weren’t as good,” he said. “I hope to get under 16:45 this week [16:55 is personal record].”

The top six teams and top 10 individuals not on one of those teams will move on to the state finals.

Putnam County semistate qualifiers

Girls

Greencastle

Emma Wilson

Shelby Kallem

South Putnam

Maddie McHugh

Cloverdale

Chelsie Edwards

Boys

South Putnam

Kieffer Vittetow

Logan Vandermark

Dru Bottorff

Michael Crossman

Karl Egold

Adair Bock

Greencastle

Clayton Wilson

Cameron Lewis

2016 girls’ cross county winning regional times

• Noblesville – 17:37.04 (Sarah Leinheiser of Carmel — 12)

West Noble – 17:50.4 (Tyler Schwartz of DeKalb — 11)

• Shelbyville – 18:03 (Erin Sullivan of Southport — 12

• Ben Davis – 18:09.91 (Emma Wilson of Greencastle — 10)

Pike Central – 18:18.50 (Hannah Sale of Evansville Reitz — 09)

New Prairie – 18:21.8 (Logan Ferngren of Valparaiso — 11)

Marion – 18:22.8 (Sydney Lambert of Norwell — 09)

Lafayette Harrison – 18:46 (Maggie Gutwein of Twin Lakes — 10)

Culver Academies – 18:47.2 (Mia Beckham of Warsaw — 11)

Crown Point – 18:52 (Jordyn Boyer of Lowell — 10)

Bedford North Lawrence – 18:36.9 (Grace Williams of Bl. North — 11)

Brown County – 18:43.56 (Rachel Brougher of Columbus North — 12)

Delta – 19:01.6 (Faith Baer of Pendleton Heights — 12)

Elkhart Central – 19:05.7 (Lauren Frank of Penn — 11)

• Rushville – 19:07 (Jenna Barker of Seton Catholic — 11)

Crawford Co. – 19:28.82 (McKenna Cavanaugh of Christian Acad. — 10)

• — Will be competing today in Shelbyville Semistate