Western, Kokomo, Eastern also advance to regional

Kokomo Tribune - Wednesday, October 14, 2009

LOGANSPORT — The Maconaquah boys cross country team, still a work in progress, keeps getting better and better.

And Tuesday the Braves reached another plateau, capturing their first sectional championship in 14 years in convincing fashion, totaling 46 points at the Logansport Sectional to get past runner-up Western (66) and an old nemesis, Oak Hill (102).

Kokomo (127) was fourth and Eastern (143) nailed down the fifth and final regional spot.

Maconaquah — which features six juniors among its top seven harriers and no seniors — ran its pack to perfection, placing five runners from No. 5 to No. 13.

Kyle Overway of the host Berries won the race with a course record time of 15 minutes, 50.8 seconds.

“This is the first time we’ve beaten Oak Hill all year, so [the Braves] had to do more than just back up what they did last week [in winning the Mid-Indiana Conference],” Maconaquah coach Melanie Bingham said. “They had to come out and contend against a team they hadn’t beaten yet.”

Jacob Bingham led the way for the Braves in fifth place in 16:55.1, followed by Chad Gregory (17:14.9) in eighth place, Austin Wise (17:17.9) ninth, Zac Butts (17:23.7) 11th and Bryce Comp (17:30.6) 13th.

“I’m a big believer in pace as far as your average pace overall throughout the entire race,” said Jeff Bingham, an assistant to wife Melanie and father to Jacob.

“I was looking for our splits being maybe no more than 10 seconds under our overall pace, and then the last mile we didn’t want to be any more than 10 seconds over. We’ve been working on pace a lot and we really concentrate on that.”

Panthers coach Gary Jewell, who lost top-five runner John Capps to an injury two weeks prior to sectional, said his defending sectional champions were no match for Maconaquah.

“Boy, did [the Braves] take it to us,” he said. “They have a very nice pack and they’re running well. Jeff and I were talking, and I said, ‘You keep this up and you could knock off one of those [top-six teams] in the [New Prairie] Semistate. Even if we had all of our guys we wouldn’t have beaten them [Tuesday].”

For Western, Austin Young turned in a third-place finish in 16:45.5, followed by Chris Love (17:11.5) in seventh place, Kody Harmon (17:21.4) 10th, Christopher Nunan (17:59.7) 21st and Braxton Bagwell (18:16.4) 25th.

“We actually ran pretty well,” said Jewell. “[Monday] night I looked at potential scores, and I had my top three guys scoring 20 points and they had 20. For a team score I had between 62 and 64 and they were right within two points.”

Kokomo kept its lengthy string of regional appearances alive despite illnesses and injuries that keep mounting.

“It was amazing. We didn’t think we’d make it out,” Kats coach Ricke Stucker said. “After the warmup [Tuesday] my No. 1 runner [Dylan Walker] didn’t run at all and two other kids were sick. I had kids running in the 19-[second range] running in place of kids running in the 17s.”

Adrian Glover (17:27.1) was 12th, Jordan Lee (17:43.6) 17th, Austin Conwell (18:28.6) 29th, Vince Calabro (18:30.6) 31st and Waylon Coulter (19:05.1) 38th.

“Even healthy,” Stucker added, “we wouldn’t have run a whole lot better, maybe third, but we’re pleased we even got out. We’re happy. We have to be happy.”

Tickled to death are the Comets, who secured their first regional trip since 2004 .

Ryan Horner came up big, finishing sixth in 17:08.2. Hansen Martin (17:40.3) was 15th, Mitch Padfield (18:21.7) 27th, Brett Buckmaster (19:07.7) 42nd and Sam Clark (19:28.1) 53rd.

“Everything just came together and it worked out perfectly the way we hoped,” Eastern coach Brandon Mink said. “You never know on a given day, but the boys finally got over the hump.

“I’m really proud of the seniors [Martin, Padfield and Buckmaster], those guys who have not been able to get past the sectional, so I’m really happy for them.”

Lewis Cass’ Nathan Wilson earned one of the 15 individual regional berths. He was 14th in 17:34.6. His Kings were 10th with 223 points while Peru (182) was seventh, Taylor (221) ninth and Northwestern (263) 11th.