19-ranked Western came away with the championship in Class AA, which featured schools with enrollments of 601 to 1,200. Western finished with a score of 84 to edge Culver Academy (86). South Bend St. Joseph's finished third in the field of 20 full teams with a score of 112.
"As the race was developing, we knew it was going to be tightly contested between Western, Culver [Academy] and South Bend St: Joe. It certainly ended that way," Neet said. "Our emphasis is every position counts and in large meets like this, that is especially true. Cassie Myer, our fifth runner, placed one position ahead of [Culver Academy's] No. 5 runner. That is a two-point swing - and that is obviously big."
Annina Gruber led the Western contingent with a time of 15:42, which was good for fifth place. Three other Panther rutmere also finished in the top 20: Anna ~ (10th place 16:21); Jenn Elliott (13th, 16:25); ar~ Lacey Myer (20th, 16:44).
"Annina continues to run with such confidence and composure. She ran 20 seconds faster than last year," Neer said. "It's great to have Anna back in our lineup. She continues to run stronger each week. Jenn and Lacey, not only were they in the top 20, they were two of the top three freshmen in the entire race. They were able to keep up with some tough competition. At points, it could have been easy for them to fall back, but they kept battling with some of the beet runners in the northern half of the state."
Other Panther runners were: Cassie Myer (36th, 17:16); Vanessa Lorenz (46th, 17:34); and Katie Hollingsworth (68th, 18:07).
New Prairie Invitational - Boys
Peru and Western competed in Class AA (schools with enrollments of 601 to 1,200) and finished eighth and 11th, respectively. Indianapolis Roncalli topped the field of 19 full teams with a score of 58 while Peru finished with a score of 210 and Western carne in at 275.
Cody Siblisk led Peru with an 11th place finish in 17:16. Other Peru runhers were: Andrew Bedwell (28th place, 17:47); Tony Zimmerman (41st, 18:04); J.R. Robison (62nd, 18:34) and Aaron Gibson (81st, 19:24).
"We ran very well," Peru coach Gary Downing said. "We competed against future conference and sectional teams."
Luke Minor led Western with a time Of 17:37, which was good for 20th place. Other Western runners were: Trevor Mann (49th place, 18:13); Jared Hall (58th, 18:32); Shawn Parkins (80th, 19:05); Alex Sigler (84th, 19:30); and Nick Lanahan (119th, 21:33).
"On a scale of one to 10, I'd give us a seven," Western coach Dana Neer said. "We had a decent performance, but we were shooting for spectacular. But, in a race like this, it's: easy to lose sight of where everyone is at and I think that happened to us a little bit in the first part of the race.
"We had some bright spots," Neer added, "Luke Minor was a top-20 runner, Jared Hall is getting stronger and more confident as ,each meet goes by and our fo'urth and fifth runners, Shawn Parkins and Alex Sigler, are gaining experience and I think that is going to pay off when the conference and sectional races begin."