RUSSIAVILLE -- If high school girls cross country were only 3,200 meters, Western might be celebrating a Mid-Indiana Conference championship today.
But it takes a full four kilometers to win a race, and that last 800 meters is what cost the Panthers Tuesday's title at Oakbrook Valley Park. Hamilton Heights claimed its fourth consecutive MIC victory by a single point, 46-47, over Western.
Senior Annina Gruber led the No. 18-ranked Panthers with her third individual title in four years, and Western put four girls in the top 11. But a late surge from Heights seniors Crystal Alley, Alyssa Burkhardt and Abbie Garrison -- their third, fourth and fifth finishers who ended up 12th, 13th and 14th, respectively -- gave the Huskies the narrow win. Western's fifth finisher, Cassie Myer, slumped to 17th at the line.
"That's kind of a Hamilton Heights trademark," said Panthers coach Dana Neer. "They just have a great closer in the last 800 meters, and every time you pass somebody, it's a two-point swing -- one point less for you and one more point for us. They ran a great last 800 meters."
Northwestern claimed third place with 89 points, and Taylor, behind Danielle Glick's runner-up finish, was fourth with 111.
Hamilton Heights made a clean sweep on the warm, humid evening by winning the boys title with a narrow, 40-42 margin over Peru. The Purple Tigers of Northwestern were once again third with 69, and Western finished fourth with 83.
Gruber led the girls race from start to finish, completing the hilly, first-year course in 15 minutes, 42 seconds. She said the entire team is still putting in a lot of work, building for their ultimate goal of finishing in the top five at the New Haven Semistate two weeks from Saturday.
"We're working through sectional and will back off a little [at regional], but at semistate we plan to be real fresh," Gruber said. "We haven't had a meet yet where our legs have been fresh, so we're looking forward to semistate."
Freshman Jenn Elliott was eighth for the Panthers in her first MIC meet, and classmate Lacey Myer was 10th, followed by Anna Hurlock in 11th.
Heights was led by freshman Caity Murdock in third place, and Heather Reeves was fourth. Neer said Western lost to "a great team."
"They have a great senior class," Neer said. "They were led by a freshman tonight, but the rest were all seniors. They're used to this."
Glick continues to round into shape after a stress fracture cost her a summer of conditioning. She also was runner-up to Gruber in the Howard County Meet 10 days earlier.
"My goal is to race my best at semistate," she said. "I'm just working at getting more miles on before the end of the season actually winds down."
Lauren Sewell and Jessica Claudio were fifth and sixth, respectively. Both will lead Northwestern's postseason efforts.
"Lauren and Jennifer can run with anybody they run against," said Purple Tigers coach Pete Schroer. "The other girls need to do their part and we'll see if we can advance out of regional. I know the girls want to go back to semistate."
Jessica Parkman (7th) of Peru and Savannah Sano (9th) of Maconaquah rounded out the top 10 all-conference finishers.
While Matt Ullmer was running away with the boys individual title in 15 minutes, 52 seconds, Heights and Peru ran away from the rest of the teams. They stocked seven of the top-10 spots.
The Huskies were led by Jordan Ellis (2nd), Matt Lawson (6th) and Ryan Band (7th), while Andrew Bedwell (3rd), Cody Siblisk (4th), Tony Zimmerman (9th) and J.R. Robison (10th) led the Bengal Tigers.
Luke Minor finished fifth to lead Western, and freshman Kory Kennedy was eighth for the Purple Tigers.
Schroer was pleased to see Ullmer run so well and his team's third-place finish after placing seventh in 2004.
"I'm proud of how they ran and competed," he said. "I can't ever put down the effort that those guys put into it every day. They don't give up.
"[Ullmer] ran the part of the race hard in the middle that he really needed to. It's a lot of pressure because he knew everybody was chasing him and he was a marked man. He responded well and had a great race."
For Neer, it was a mystery why his team wasn't in better contention for the title.
"This is probably the weakest race we've ran all year," said Neer. "We traditionally move up from the [first] 800 [meters] to the mile and we didn't. Our places stayed the same. When they passed me at the mile mark and they were still in the same position, I knew we weren't very sharp [Tuesday]."