Perhaps no one was more surprised by the late-season success of the Kokomo High School boys cross country team than coach Ricke Stucker.
He called his young Wildkats an "unproved quantity" before the season began, but of the three county teams to advance to the Marion Regional in 2004, Kokomo led the way with a third-place sectional finish.
Stucker returns his top six runners from the team that narrowly missed advancing to the New Haven Semistate, and not one of those six is even a senior yet.
"We were freshman and sophomores for the most part so we're sophomores and juniors this year," Stucker says. "They had a really good summer and we carne off a good cross country, camp at McCormicks Creek. Were ready for some competition now."
Kokomo's season begins Saturday at the Huntington North lnviatlonal, and while junior Ryan Perry should emerge as the early leader of the pack, the Wildkats might have as many as four No. 1 runners during the course of the season, according to Stucker.
"That's a good thing, though," he explained. We'll' have a lot of competition in practice. Hopefully, well have a tighter, pack than we did last year."
Perry was Kokomo's top sectional finisher last season with a 12th place finish. Stucker believes Perry/and dassmate Tony Robinette will lead the team this year.
A third junior, Cameron Cunningham, also returns. He ended as Kokomo's No. 3 runner last season, finishing 18th in the sectional, but another summer of playing baseball will delay how soon he rounds into shape. Three juniors will be joined by a, trio of sophomore lettermen finished 15th, 19th and 21st, respectively, at last year's sectional.
The lone senior on the team will be Matt Robertson, whom Stucker said could crack the top seven. He'll be challenged by freshman Ian Holtson.
While the team has its sights set on improving that sixth-place regional finish and advancing to semistate, Stucker cautions against looking past the Marion Sectional.
"There are always tough teams around here," he cautions. "We want to do well in our conference and make sure we get out of our sectional."
The following are looks at the other Howard County boys CC squads in alphabetical order.
Eastern
Comets coach Brandon Mink must replace four of his top six athletes, including Tony Martin, the county's only State meet participant, and No, 2 man Jonathan Fansler.
Stepping up to take leadership of the team will be senior captain Trevor Young. He and junior Drew Patton are the only two returnees, and they must lead a group of newcomers if the Comets are to repeat as MIC champs and regional qualifiers.
"Treyor and Drew were a big part of last year's success and eyre going to get better," Mink said. "These new guys are going to hopefully mature quicker than you'd normally expect and make a big contribution by the end of the year."
New to the team are sophomore Cody McMahan, a 400-meter spedalist from the track team, freshmen Cody Young and Steven Boomershine, and senior Silas Stiner, out for the team after a couple years off.
"Most of these guys don t have a lot of mileage under them, but I'm encouraged by the attitude and work ethic," said Mink. "We're going to take some lumps, especially early on, but expect them to do well by the end of the year."
Northwestern
The Tigers return a soiid core of runners from last season, but coach Pete Schroer is looking for his squad to develop the intangibles to improve on their sixth place Sectional finish.
"The biggest challenge for us coming into this year is to mold some individual talent into what we call a 'real team', " Schroer said.
"Our No. 1 team goal is to build team chemistry. Until that chemistry comes, ifs going to be difficult for us to focus on a lot of other team goal."
Northwestern will rely on a pair of seniors for leadership, Rolando Claudio and Jordan Reed, who sat out last season but is healthy this year.
Junior Matt Ulmer returns as the team's No. 1 runner from last year. He's joined by classmates Zach Catt, Josh Galloway, Alex Smith, Jesse Bauson and David Bahler, who is recovering from hernia surgery.
Schroer gives Claudio and Catt the inside track on running second and third behind Ulmer.
First year runner Zavier Sanders is the best bet for a top five spot among a group of sophomores that included Gabe Tryling and Tory Bousom, and Schroer believes freshman Kory Kennedy can contribute right away.
"He certainly works hard enough and has put in some great mileage, said Schroer. "You couldn't ask for a better representative from the freshman class. He'll be a significant addition to our team."
Taylor
The Titans have Struggled to attract athletes to cross country in the past and this year is no exception.
With its only two runners from last year gone, including semistate qualifier Christopher S'mnett Taylor has just one runner this season.
Senior Joktan Hart ran as a sophomore but didn't come out last year due to the extremely low numbers. He played soccer instead and might do both this year, according to coach Jim Grossman.
"We're just kind of starting over again with cross country," says Grossman, who sees football, soccer and tennis as his competition for athletes.
"It's just a lot of sports and kind of a small base to pull from. We try to offer something for everybody."
Western
The Panthers return five of their top seven sectional runners, including senior Eric Walsh and juniors Luke Minor and Trevor Mann, three individuals from whom coach Dana Neer expects much. "They have formed into a strong unit that we believe will be just seconds apart," Neer said. "They have learned the important lessons of success over the last several years and what it takes to be successful."
Senior David Moser has probably wrapped up the No. 4 spot in the lineup, although he's being pushed by sophomore Alex Sigler.
With 25 young men in camp, Neer has a large group to choose from when looking to complete the varsity roster.
Mentioned as possible candidates are seniors Jacob Hemming and Shawn Parkins, who finished 47th in last year's sectional race; juniors D.J. Shepherd, Sam Horoho, and Josh Kelly, sophomores Alex Miller, and freshmen Cory Scott, Russell Showers, and recent mvne-in, Jared Hall.
"I'm pleased that we have more depth with our top 12 runners than any team I've ever coached," said Neer. "It's going to be very interesting as the season takes place."