Wednesday, October 15, 2003

MARION -- Kyle Walsh had one goal for Tuesday's IHSAA Marion Boys Cross Country Sectional: "Making sure I won."

The Western senior accomplished that goal on a cold, wet and extremely windy afternoon at Indiana Wesleyan University, defending the' individual championship he won last season with a time of 16 minutes, 22 seconds in the five-kilometer race. Without sidelined senior Jim Jackson, Western finished exactly where it felt it would third behind the champion Oak Hill Golden Eagles and the second-place Giants. The Eagles finished with 50 points to 57 for Marion and the 66 of the Panthers. Fourth went to Kokomo with 130 and Northwestern's score of 154 earned it the final spot in, Saturday's Marion Regional.

While the winds seemed to take control of many of the runners, Walsh played them to his advantage. The Panther let other runners run up front early as he drafted off of them.

"It seems like the wind was blowing right into us and affecting the race," Walsh said. "I didn't want to block the wind for everybody so I stayed back a little bit behind the runners."

With just one competitor, Oak Hill s Dustin Rose, within his sights at the two-mile mark, the Western senior decided it was time to put the race away.

"Rose was, right on my back. I gave it one good surge, pulled away and didn't let the wind bother me anymore," he said.

Rose went on to finish second at 16:45.

The Panthers got a tremendous race out of senior Andy Snow, who made a huge burst at the end and finished eighth. Michael Marley followed in 10th while Luke Minor was 21st and Eric Walsh 26th for Western.

"Andy ran the race of his life. It was all position. He had a nice first mile and just got stronger and stronger as the race went," Panthers coach Dana Neer noted. "At the mile he was 25th. To finish eighth, he ran a masterful race. Luke ran his best race all season and Eric was right there behind him."

Third place went to Kokomo's Bryan Phillips With a time. of 16:54.

"That's the first time Bryan's beat Josh Foss [of Marion]. He ran a pretty good race and was 22 seconds off his season best, which is amazing on a day like this," Wild,kats coach Ricke Stucker said. Two freshmen, Ryan Perry and Cameron Cunningham, ran good races, too."

Carleton Smith topped Northwestern with his 14th-place finish and Tigers coach Pete Schroer was happy for his young team.

"You could tell they were overjoyed. There was a little cheer when they found out they weren't sixth," he said. 'They're a work in progress. We only had two seniors who ran - John Bahler and Michael Rudy. Carleton has some experience, but the rest of them are basically rookies whether they're freshmen or have never run cross country before."

Eastern followed the Tigers in sixth with 160 while Tipton (215) was eighth, Taylor (278) 10th and Tri-Central (521) was llth.

Moving on as individuals are Taylor's Christopher Sinnetk who came in fifth, along with ninth place finisher Sam Compton-Craig of Tipton and Eastern's Derek Woods, who was 15th.