Western won the girls championship and Warren Central turned in a dominant performance to claim the boys championship Saturday in the Maconaquah Cross Country Invitational.
On the girls side, Western finished with a score of 57 to edge Mid-Indiana Conference rival Hamilton Heights (65) and Noblesville (68) for the title in the field of 12 full teams. Six other schools fielded incomplete teams.
"One of the things we talked about going in was we must compete with top 25 teams like Hamilton Heights and Noblesville if we're going to compete with the top 20 teams that we'll see in the Fort Wayne Semistate," Western coach Dana Neer said. "So, we put a little pressure on ourselves, and we ran very well. We didn't run our best, we still have room to improve, but we ran a very good race."
Kokomo finished fourth in the girls'standings with a score of 123. Maconaquah (138), Northwestern (203)' and Taylor (205) placed fifth through seventh, Peru (225) took ninth and Cass (282) and Eastern (284) finished 11-12.
Individual champion Annina Gruber led the way for 'Western. She covered the 4,000-meter course in 15:07.
"Annina and Taylor Bowles from Noblesville had a good race," Neer noted. "Annina had about a 30-meter lead at the mile and She extended that through the last half of the race. She ran a very intelligent race."
Neer said the Panthers met their goal of putting six runners in the top 25. Other top Western runners included: Lacey Myer (15:54, llth place); Anna Hurlock (15:56, 12th place); Jenn Elliott (16:06, lIth place) and Cassie Myer (16:24, 24th place).
Heather Reeves led Heights' charge to second as she turned in a time of 15:29 to finish in fifth place.
For Kokomo, Adrienne Shepherd (15:42) and Nlkki Parry (16:00) finished ninth and 14th, respectively. Sarah Lee (16:55) came in 35rd place.
"Six out of seven girls ran really well," Kokomo coach Ricke Stucker said. "It was a new course, and it was measured a little short, so times were very fast. We still figured we ran pretty well. Adrienne ran the best for the girls, she probably cut about 47 seconds off her time. Our team time was the best it's been all season."
Danielle Glick led Taylor with a solid showing. She covered the course in 15:23 to take third place. Addie Rayl (15:40) led an incomplete Tri-Central team with a seventh-place finish and Jennifer Claudio (15:57) led Northwestern with a 13th, place showing.
Also, Savannah Sano (16:08, 18th place) led Maconaquah; Jessica Parkman (16:17, 22nd place) topped Peru; Emily Rethke (16:44, 29th place) led Eastern and Brittinie Gillem (17:35, 43rd place) led Cass.
Warren Central Wows 'em
No. 2-ranked Warren Central dominated the boys race as Warrior runners finished first, second, third, fifth and seventh for a team score of 18. For good measure, the Warriors also had a runner finish eighth.. De-Sean Turner covered the 5,000-meter course in 16:28 to win the race.
Noblesville finished with a score of 76 to better Kokomo (89) for second place in the of 15 full teams. Hamilton Heights, Western and Northwestern each finished with a score of 159 and finished fourth through sixth, respectively, following the tiebreaker. Peru (169) was seventh.
Ryan Perry led Kokomo with a time of 17:45, which was good for 15th place. Brandon Sheline (17:48) followed in 16th and Mason McGovern (17:54) and Cameron Cunningham (17:55)placed 18th and 19th.
"We had four of seven run very well," Stucker said. "We had a 19-second gap from our top runner to our fifth runner, and we had a 35 second gap from our first to our seventh. That is really good for us. It was a hot, miserable day, but we did a good job."
Jordan Ellis led Hamilton Heights with a time of 17:22, which was good for ninth place. For Western, Luke Minor (17:40) led the way with a 13th place finish, Trevor Mann (18:09) took 25th place and Jared Hall (18:30) was 31st.
"Luke ran 40 seconds faster than last year," Neer noted. "Treyor Mann has great closing skills, and he ran the final 1.1 miles in about six minutes to pass quite a few runners. Jared Hall and Alex Sigler (19:02, 44th place) have strong sprints for the final 400 and were able to pass some people at the end."
Ullmer led all local runners with a fourth-place showing. He covered the course in 16:52 to break up the Warren Central pack.
"I really like the way Matt runs. He is aggressive yet he is under control," Western's Neer said.
"At the 800 and 1,600 marks, he was probably a solid sixth or eighth. He just became stronger and stronger as the race went on. As the pack began to separate, he held his position and gained ground. He was only 20 seconds off the leader. He is a bona-fide candidate to go to the state meet this year. He is looking really good.
Cody Siblisk and Andrew Bedwell led Peru. Siblisk (17:36) placed 12th and Bedwell followed in 14th.
"This was a very good race Peru Coach Gary Downing said. "It put our conference into perspective with four teams within 10 points of each other.
"Under circumstances we have no control over, I thought my boys ran well," he added.