Friday, October 22, 2004
The eyes and minds of the Western girls cross country team have been focused on this weekend - the IHSAA New Haven Semistate - for the past 12 months. The Panthers finished sixth in the meet on the campus of IPFW last year, missing an invitation to the state meet by just 20 points.
Determined to make up for that finish, the Panthers return to Fort Wayne Saturday for the 11 a.m. meet as do the Kokomo Wildkats and Taylor junior Danielle Glick. Making her first semistate ap-pearance will be Addle Rayl of Tri-Central.
"We came so close last year and this is our best chance to get to state," Western senior Megan Clearwaters said.
Classmate Becky Elliott added, "We have to make sure we don't hold anything back at all. You don't want to be disappointed later be-cause you didn't give everything."
Twenty teams enter the meet looking to finish among the top five - positions that will send them to the Oct 30 state meet in Terre Haute. The Panthers believe that one of those top five spots is theirs for the taking.
"There are three elite teams -Carroll [Allen County], Northridge and Fort Wayne Concordia - nine great teams and the rest of them are good teams, too," WHS coach Dana Neer said. "The best of the other nine are Fort Wayne North, Homestead and Western.
"But there is so much evenness. The scores will be extremely dose, especially from fifth to 12th. There might only be one or two points difference in some situations."
Elliott and Clearwaters are four-year varsity letterwinners and will be running their third straight semistate each. They both agree the semistate is a different meet than any other during the season.
"It's so much more exciting and there's a lot more energy," Elliott said.
Clearwaters noted how the Panthers have performed in the large meets.
"We've done a good job getting through those big meets with 20 to 25 teams," she said. "You just have to be mature and not let your nerves get you in the semistate."
Neer says the team's schedule has helped prepare it for this meet.
"Our schedule is very conducive to us running in this with four ma-jor invitationals spread evenly through the year - New Haven, New Prairie, Maconaquah and Fountain Central" he said. "We've been able to race eight of the top 20 teams, and another 10 very strong teams that are in the top 50."
The Panthers need to focus on two things, he added.
They need to keep their concentration and remember to overcome groups of runners - "not just run at the end of groups," Neer said. "We can reduce our score that way."
The Wildkats return to Fort Wayne with three girls who ran in the:semistae last season - Adri-enne Shepherd, Summer Hickey and Sarah Lee. For the other four girls - Nicky Parry, Tiffany Williams, Sarah McDonald and Katie Cole - this will be a new ex-perience.
"We're trying to get healthy so we can go up and run season bests so we can be ready for next year," KHS coach Ricke Stucker said. "It was good to go up there for the New Haven Invitational. That was a huge invitational and we got familiar with the course. That was a really good invitational with a big crowd and good teams."
Glick has her eyes set on a state meet berth. Last year, she finished 25th at the semistate in her first year of cross country. The top 15 individuals also advance.
"Last year was a real eye-open-ing experience. From the regional to semistate, it's a totally different ball game. ,The tempo is totally different and the girls do crazy things to try to get to state," the Titan runner explained. "It's a tough meet and I will have to be at my best.
"I now I have to go out hard and stay up there, I can't poke around. My time isn't a concern, it's all about what place you get."
Rayl has Watched the semistate and knows "I definitely have to step it up."
"I hope to run my best race ever and if that's good enough make it to state, that's great," the Trojan junior said. "I've had a good sea-son and I'm happy with what I've done. It would be awesome to go on. I if do my best and it doesn't happy, that'Il be OK"