Sunday, October 24, 2004
FORT WAYNE -- Tony Martin se-cured his spot in Eastern High School history as he became the first Comet runner to ever qualify for the IHSAA Boys State Cross Country Championship Saturday.
The Eastern senior finished 14th in the New Haven Semistate on the campus of Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne with s time of 16 minutes, 20.7 seconds. When you consider Martin had never run high school cross country before this, his achievement is even more remarkable.
"It was my goal, but, I guess you never think it will happen until it does," Martin said. "I feel great now, especially since I'm not sick at my stomach or have a headache and I can lift my arms without struggling."
Those conditions described how he felt at the end of the 5,000-kilometer race after fighting to stay in contention for his trip to the state meet. With 800 meters, Martin was in 10th, but "I was pretty dead."
"There were one or two hills left after the 800 and my coach was yelling at me to pump my arms going up the hills," he said. "When we got to that last straight-away, three people passed me, but I just kept going."
The start of the semistate race pushed him even more than he thought it might. "I knew I was going to have to get out fast, but the pace at the beginning really pushed me along. When we got to the mile, I looked over at the clock and my time was five seconds faster than I'd ever run," Martin said. "I was a little worried that ! was pushing too hard, but [ had to give itall if I wanted to go to state."
Martin's finish was the highlight for the five area runners. Sam Compton-Craig of Tipton finished 39th in 16:50.4 while Northwestern's Matt Ullmer was close behind in 41st with a time of 16:523. Western's Michael Marley took 49th in 16:59.6 and Taylor's Christopher Sinnett finished 90th in 17:26.9.
The semistate was especially disappointing for the Titan senior, who suffered through a cramp in his side for much of the race and was unable to get out and run.
Northwestern coach Pete Schroer was extremely pleased and proud of Ullmer, a sophomore who was here for the first time.
"Matt was excited about the opportunity coming in and he really ran strong" he said. "Matt's done a lot this season, considering he wasn't even on our list [of top perform-ances] and now he has the sixth best time. And he moved up a bit among the people out of our regional[ninth of runners from Marion].
"I asked him if it was fun, if he was excited and if he wanted to come back and I got a big smile on all of them. He wanted to find out what it was like. He found out and he wants to come back."
Marley wrapped up his, cross country career wishing he'd run better but still pleased.
"My race was OK. I didn't run my best, but it could have been a lot worse," he said.
Blackford sophomore Adam Lentz was the meet's individual winner with his time of 15:53 and that helped the Bruins take fifth overall. Northridge was the team champion.