Kokomo Tribune - Sunday, October 14, 2007

WHS girls, boys, Kokomo boys and Parry, Claudio all advance.

CULVER — Nearly everyone who came here Saturday in search of a dream at the Culver Academies Cross Country Regional got what they wished for.

Western captured a pair of second-place finishes for the girls and boys, the first time both squads will travel to the semistate since 2003.

Kokomo’s boys ran a strong third behind the Panthers and will make a third straight semistate appearance, and while the girls missed a semistate berth by one spot, Nicky Parry finished third overall to advance.

Northwestern’s Jennifer Claudio punched her ticket as an individual to the New Prairie Semistate next Saturday with a fourth-place finish. This will be her second semistate run.

But then there was the Northwestern girls team, which finished third at the Logansport Sectional and had its sights set on one of the five qualifying spots only to fall to seventh Saturday, just five points behind the Wildkats and 16 behind fifth-place Pioneer.

And Kory Kennedy, who had a mishap on one of the few hills on the course that cost him dearly. Despite his best efforts to get back into the race, Kennedy finished 16th overall.

Only the top five teams and top 15 individuals qualified for New Prairie.

"I’m disappointed for myself as the coach, thinking I should have had them better prepared to be so close, but I’m not disappointed in the kids at all," said Northwestern coach Dave Stevens, who still clutched the card that read "16" for Kennedy’s placing.

"They ran hard for me and I’m proud of that. It’s a learning experience and we’ll be back next year."

Western, which qualified for its seventh straight girls semistate, got a shot in the arm with the return from injuries of senior Katie Hollingsworth and freshman Ashley Gaskins.

Despite their layoffs, Hollingsworth finished 10th overall and first for the Panthers in 20:54.7, while Gaskins was 18th and ran fifth for the team.

"I’m still trying to get back to breathing right and just being able to run well," Hollingsworth said. "I’m not feeling as strong as I was [before the injury] but I’m getting there."

Sandwiched between Hollingsworth and Ashley Gaskins were freshman Corianne Myer (11th), junior Jenn Elliott (12th) and freshman Kayla Gaskins (14th). All five were within 29 seconds of each other.

"I’m really happy with the pack running because it’s great encouragement for the girls," said coach Heather Yentes. "In that pack you don’t know where they will finish but it seems they just place where they need to place in order for us to do well as a team."

Hollingsworth said it was tough sitting on the sidelines as her team recorded another successful season.

"I love being with my team," said Hollingsworth, who was out for more than five weeks. "[Saturday] was a race just to kind of see where all of us are and hopefully next week, with another week of training, we can have a really good race at semistate."

Culver Academies’ Alex Banfich lived up to her billing. She won the girls race with a course record 17:59.6, more than 1:30 faster than runner-up Morgan Hite of Plymouth.

Parry and Claudio are two seniors who look like they don’t want to stop running. They finished 1-3 at the Logansport Sectional on Tuesday and followed up with two more impressive performances Saturday.

Both ran personal- and school-bests for 5,000 meters — Parry with her first sub 20-minute time in 19:50.1 and Claudio in 20:00.6.

"It was exciting for me," Parry said. "I hadn’t broken my [personal record] since late September. I went out fast my first mile and just kept building on that."

Claudio said she was prepared to do whatever it took to finish among the top 15. She went to semistate as a sophomore but fell short last year.

"I knew what I had to do," she said. "I had to stay with Nicky. I knew that she was my competition.

"It’s my senior year and I didn’t want to leave any regrets behind and that’s what I did. I’m very happy right now."

Kokomo coach Ricke Stucker marveled at the way his girls finished their season, one that started with only four runners.

He noted that the team ran 30 seconds faster than at sectional and that one runner, Madi Cassidy, shaved 99 seconds off her personal-best.

"It’s a fun group of girls with just no knowledge of cross country," Stucker said. "We had no business probably even being here. We’re happy with where we finished."

Ashley Baber finished fifth as Cass placed eighth. She one of five freshmen to finish in the top 15 with a time of 20:13.9, qualifying her for New Prairie as an individual.

Boys race

Oak Hill ran away with the boys race with 56 points, grabbing the first, third and fifth spots. Cameron Balser won the race in 16:11.0.

The Panthers (91) and Wildkats (96) ran second and third to the Golden Eagles for the second race in a row. Coach Joe Orr thought his Western squad got a nice push from Kokomo.

"I think that helped get us going because Kokomo was challenging us," he said. "Some of their guys were ahead of our guys who normally haven’t been, so I think they got us going to push us to better times and better places."

Corey Scott and Zac Martinez continue to lead the Panthers. They finished eighth and 10th, respectively, while Kody Harmon was 23rd, Chris Love 25th and Austin Young 32nd.

"I told the guys they had to be pleased with anything in the top four, and getting second is really good," Orr said. "I think they know now Oak Hill has three very solid runners. I want them to enjoy this [second-place finish] because it’s going to be a very tough field next week."

Ian Holtson paced the Kats in 13th place. Brandon Sheline was 15th, Devin White 22nd, Jordan Lee 26th and Rob Walker 28th.

"We were happy for those two guys in the top 15, but we scored a lot of points," said Stucker. "Hopefully at New Prairie, that course is fast too and we’ll have an opportunity to run season-bests in our last meet. That’s what we strive for."

Kennedy is a junior who was seeking his first semistate berth. He picked up a couple spots between kilometer No. 3 and the finish after the slip but it wasn’t enough.

"The 16th-place finish, that’s tough. That’s really tough," Stevens said. "He slipped coming down the hill and caught his back kind of funny. It took him probably a couple hundred meters to reset himself and that was enough for that pack to get away from him.”

Around the area, Peru qualified Aaron Garretson for the semistate with a sixth-place finish in 16:44.0 as the Bengal Tigers finished seventh.

Maconaquah likewise put Bryce Comp (14th, 16:57.1) in the top 15 to advance to New Prairie as the Braves finished eighth.