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Wilson wins third straight cross country sectional title; several others advancing
Greencastle junior Emma Wilson continued to extend her cross country victory streaks, winning the South Putnam sectional girls’ individual title on Saturday for the third straight year.
Team-wise, South Putnam placed both its boys’ and girls’ teams in the top five to advance to Saturday’s Ben Davis Regional.
Wilson leads a large contingent of Putnam County athletes moving on from non-advancing teams, joined by Cloverdale freshman Lily Monnett, Tiger Cub junior teammate Sydney Kallem and North Putnam freshmen Anna Haste and Grace Elmore.
Putnam County runners advancing to the boys’ regional are Greencastle’s Ben Gellman, Justin Berish and Ian Frank, North Putnam’s Caleb Duncan and Cloverdale’s Rylan Hall and Chase Ashcraft.
Avon won the boys’ meet with 39 team points, to 49 for runnerup Brownsburg. Brownsburg dominated the girls’ race with 21 points, as Plainfield was a distant second with 69 points.
Going into the meet, South Putnam coach Brandon Welti admits being “a bit more anxious” than a week ago – noting that his boys’ team seemed “ready to roll” while the girls were “pretty banged up.”
The race went about as expected on the boys’ side, Welti said, with his team placing fifth among the 10 schools fielding full teams.
“On our course, I feel like you have to judge the race more by who we compete with and not by what times we run,” he said, noting that South Putnam’s hilly course tends to be pretty slow in terms of time. “Overall I’d say we did fairly well, though there are a few things we need to work on. Teams like Danville and Plainfield will be fighting for semistate spots [in the regional], so it’s really important that our guys are doing their best to compete with those runners.”
Austin Rumley placed seventh individually, while Karl Egold was 20th to pace the Eagles.
“They both got out with solid starts and really had to battle to stay in it mentally as the Avon pack started rolling up,” Welti said. “The mid-pack guys also had a few people that we were trying to compete with. There were mixed results individually in terms of beating certain runners.
“The boys got the job done and qualified for regional as we hoped, and now it’s just a matter of preparing for what’s at Ben Davis.”
Injury sidelined sophomore Lexi Vanihel for the race and limited the performance of senior Ally Nichols.
“For the girls’ team, we knew it was going to be a challenge,” Welti said. “Lexi is sitting out for at least a week with just aqua training due to an injury, and this puts a lot of pressure on the rest of the girls.”
Chelsie Edwards continued to pace the Eagles, finishing 11th overall, while Lillie Stein ran second by finishing in 21st place.
“Chelsie ran well up front as our No. 1 runner, and she did a great job of holding her expected finishing position,” Welti said. “Samara Young and Rachel Jones really stepped up, both having their best races of the season. They knew we were really counting on them, and the two of them certainly didn’t let the team down.”
Welti noted that having Young and Jones was “huge” once he saw Nichols struggling.
“She had been dealing with a knee issue through most of the season, and then halfway through the race the knee started to really bother her,” he said. “She was in enough pain to drop out, but instead Ally continued to hang on for the sake of the team.”
Welti said Nichols was scheduled to visit a doctor on Monday to determine her status moving forward, and he is not confident that she’ll be cleared to run on Saturday.
“Really, with that in mind, it makes her race that much more impressive,” he said. “I really appreciate the grit she and the other girls displayed in this race. It’s really rewarding to know that they ran this well with injuries and makes you wonder what they could accomplish if they were all healthy.
“At this point, we’ll just take things in stride and be as prepared as possible for the regional.”
North Putnam coach Kevin Lutes saw several runners improve their times on the South Putnam course from the county meet run there last month.
“I don’t think we could’ve expected that much more of our kids when looking at how they raced,” he said. “Most of them had better times today than they did at county. We especially want to congratulate Caleb, Anna and Grace who will all be advancing to the regional this weekend.”
Cloverdale coach Andy Tyler also had three runners to qualify for the regional.
“I am happy with our performance,” he said. “We were hopeful that Chase, Rylan and Lily would all make it. Each of them is continuing to improve.”
The Ben Davis course is considerably flatter than South Putnam’s, and times are usually faster than on most courses.
“We are looking forward to the regional,” he said. “They will have to be focused with Ben Davis having such a fast course.”
Boys’ race
Team scores – Avon 39, Brownsburg 49, Plainfield 91, Danville 100, South Putnam 123, Cascade 168, Greencastle 208, North Putnam 221, Tri-West 256.
Individual winner – Ethan Goddard (AA) 17:11.00.
Top 10 from non-qualifying teams – 13. Ben Gellman (G) 18:09.00, 19. Caleb Duncan (NP) 18:17.00, 22. Sean Johnson (Ca) 1 8:42.00, 27. David Durham (Ca) 19:01.00, 33. Rylan Hall (Cl) 19:25.00, 39. Preston Fox (Ca) 19:57.00, 40. Justin Berish (G) 20:09.00, 41. Chase Ashcraft (Cl) 20:19.00, 42. Bryson Gilley (TW) 20:22.00, 43. Ian Frank (G) 20:33.00.
South Putnam runners – 7. Austin Rumley 17:48.00, 20. Karl Egold 18:28.00, 25. Steven Schnepp 18:48.00, 35. Dru Bottorff 19:32.79, 36. Andrew Carr 19:44.00, 38. Michael Crossman 19:49.00
Other Greencastle runners – 53. John Brook 21:22.00, 59. Tylan Jones 22:32.98
Other Cloverdale runners – 50. Raymond Bates 21:13.00, 51. Brady Szczerbik 21:17.00, 56. Eddie Mannan 22:25.00, 63. Elliott Williamson 23:19.00.
Other North Putnam runners – 47. Kyle Young 20:56.00, 48. Matthew Trotter 21:01.00, 49. Adam Bonebrake 21:03.00, 58. Grant Jarboe 22:32.21, 64. Jacob Farrington 23:29.00.
Girls’ race
Team scores – Brownsburg 21, Plainfield 69, Avon 77, South Putnam 130, Cascade 139, Greencastle 148, Danville 184, Tri-West 203, North Putnam 212.
Individual winner – Emma Wilson (G) 19:47.00.
Rest of Top 10 from non-qualifying teams – 17. Lily Monnett (Cl) 22:32.00, 18. Sydney Kallem 22:35.00, 23. Natalie Dayharsh 23:12.00, 29. Anna Haste NP) 23:58.00, 30. Rachel Clark (Da) 24:00.00, 32. Grace Elmore (NP) 24:11.00, 35. Olivia Ward (TW) 24:32.00, 37. Anna Bohbrink (TW) 24:44.00, 38. Erin Seders (Da) 24:49.00.
South Putnam runners – 11. Chelsie Edwards 21:46.00, 21. Lillie Stein 22:56.00, 27. Samara Young 23:34.00, 36. Ally Nichols 24:40.00, 39. Rachel Jones 24:54.00, 49. Ally Menke 27:07.00, 61. Addison Blaydes 30:10.00.
Other Greencastle runners – 42. Emma Huber 25:14.00, 44. Seelye Stoffregen 25:38.00, 48. Mika Mozawa 26:48.00.
Other Cloverdale runners – 54. Megan Miller 27:48.00, 55. Abigail Bernard 27:51.00.
Other North Putnam runners – 50. Madison Trotter 27:30.00, 52. Sydney Sims 27:40.00, 59. Taylor Hensley 29:53.00.