Kokomo Tribune - Sunday, October 04, 2009

Western swept the boys and girls races at the Howard County cross country meet Saturday at Taylor.

On the boys side, Western's scoring five all cruised in within the top seven to give the Panthers a comfortable victory. Western led with a score of 22, followed by Eastern at 42 and Taylor at 69. Northwestern was incomplete.

Western's Austin Young was the overall winner in 1652 followed by teammates Kody Harmon (third, 17:45), Kyle Starich (fifth, 18:17), Christopher Nunan (sixth, 18:20) and Braxton Bagwell (seventh, 18:25).

"The idea was for us to go out and run a nice conservative pace early on," Western coach Gary Jewell said. "That's what Austin and Kody did, along with Chris Love [later withdrawn during the race due to an injury]. Something we've been trying to get them to do is run a sensible pace early on, and then it'll pay off for them. I'm pretty happy with it. We ran pretty well considering the conditions - it was pretty windy out there."

Ryan Horner was second to lead the Comets (17:25) followed by Hansen Martin (fourth, 18:14), Brett Buckmas-ter (ninth, 18:54), Mitch Pad-field (13th, 19:18) and Sam Clark (16th, 2053).

"I thought we did decent. It certainly wasn't our best performance. We knew there was no way we were going to be able to touch Western with the depth they have." Eastern coach Brandon Mink said. He prased the efforts of Horner and Martin, as well as Luke Kimmel for running a personal-best time.

For Taylor, Julian Nieto led with a time of 18:55 for 10th. Justin Anderson was 12th (19:10), Kris Workman was 15th (1959), Shane Arnold was 17th (20:42) and Colin Osman was 23rd (21:12). Northwestern was led by Nolan Cockrell in llth (19:04), followed by Hayden Jarvis in 24th (21:40), Alex Fruth in 28th (23:14) and Jordan Wilson in 29th (2.5:18).

GIRLS RACE

The girls half of the county meet was tighter with Western scoring 36 to claim the top spot, followed by Northwestern with 43 and Eastern with 46. Taylor did not have a runner.

The Panthers didn't score a top-three finish individually but put all five runners in the top 11 to take the team event. Krissy Durr led Western in fourth (2154), followed by Co-rianne Myer in fifth (21:45), Kayla Gaskins in sixth (22:19), Erin Weber in 10th (23:04) and Kelsey Durr in llth (23:55).

"I think all three teams are dealing with injuries and some of the flu bug going around, so I think we. were all kind of sub par, missing some people, but I was just real pleased with how our girls ran," Western coach Bo Britton said. "We had a couple of girls out and everyone stepped up. They did what we needed and they held their places and ran a really tough race."

Heidi Freeman was second to lead Northwestern (21:07), followed by Lauren Dewhurst (seventh, 22:23), Hannah Ault (ninth, 22:53), Brittany Jocius (12th, 25:13), and Elise Cobb (13th, 25:14).

Eastern's Brittany Neeley was the overall winner, covering the course in 20:57. Also for Eastern, Sarah Wagner was third (21:24), Emily Wilcox was eighth (22:31), Alyssa Summers was 16th (26:50) and Mercedes Rubow was 19th (28:29).

"I was very pleased overall with the girls that ran," Eastern coach Mink said. "We had three girls out so we knew we weren't going to be in contention for winning it outright but the girls that did run did a very good job. I was very pleased with Brittany, she ran a very smart race. Same goes with Sarah Wagner, she did a super job of staying with the pack of girls there and just stayed with them until the last half mile or so. Almost all the girls had personal bests or season bests so I was real happy."

Next up for the county schools is the Mid-Indiana Conference meet at Oakbrook Valley on Tuesday.