Boys teams chasing Maconaquah

Western features solid senior quartet; Glover leads Kokomo’s returning group

Kokomo Tribune - Sunday, August 15, 2010

Kokomo — Don’t be surprised if this season’s area boys cross country results look a lot like last season’s, when Maconaquah swept through Mid-Indiana Conference and Logansport Sectional titles.

“In our sectional there’s no question Maconaquah is the team to beat,” longtime Kokomo coach Ricke Stucker says.

The Braves also finished third at the Culver Academies Regional and 10th at the New Prairie Semistate with a lineup of six juniors and a freshman.

“Maconaquah has a lot of talent,” said Western coach Gary Jewell, whose Panthers were second to Maconaquah at both conference and sectional and wound up 14th at semistate.

“They are going to have a big target on their backs,” Jewell added. “They obviously are the best team in the area.

“Can we catch those guys this year? I don’t know, but I think we’re going to get better as the season progresses. We’ll see how things go.”

The following are capsules of the five Howard County teams in order of their sectional finish.

Western

If the Panthers have any hope of catching Maconaquah on an off-day and unseating the Braves, it’ll be with the help of returning seniors and co-captains Chris Love, Christopher Nunan, Ben Bradshaw and Kyle Starich.

“They are the kind of leaders the rest of the team looks up to and they’ve stepped up their training this year because they know this is their last shot,” Jewell said of the quartet. “They have some things they want to accomplish and they have a good shot at doing that.”

Sophomore Braxton Bagwell also returns with semistate experience and Western adds a dynamic group of seven freshmen that includes Matt Grider and Jake Bradshaw. They finished 1-2 in 2009 Howard County middle-school meet.

Jewell has a total of eight seniors, including Joe Whitmore, who has varsity experience.

It’s a roster that’s top- and bottom-heavy with seniors and freshmen and only one junior and one sophomore.

“Right now we’re kind of halfway between reloading and rebuilding, I guess,” said Jewell.

Kokomo

The Wildkats return four runners from their fourth-place sectional team, including senior Adrian Glover, who wound up ninth at regional but was too ill to run semistate.

Classmate Dylan Walker also returns, as do junior Matthew Scharenbroch and sophomore Waylon Coulter, but Stucker is concerned about the depth of his pack.

“After [Glover and Walker] it looks like we’ll have a huge gap between [our No.] 2 and 3 [runners] and maybe even 4 and 5,” Stucker said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before October … but we will improve tremendously.”

Among the candidates to fill the remaining spots are former football player Zach Whiteman, freshman Jeremy Breedlove and sophomores Nolan Arnold, Brent Noll and Minh Pham.

Eastern

Led by Ryan Horner, the Comets last season finished fifth at sectional to earn their first regional trip since 2004, with Horner winding up at semistate.

“We’re hoping to advance again to regional [as a team],” coach Brandon Mink said. “Ryan’s been putting in a lot of miles this summer. We hope we have a shot at getting him on to state.”

Senior Luke Kimmel and junior Sam Clark are the only other regional returnees for Mink, who will rely on freshman Lewis Duke and sophomores Adam Schaaf, John Lee and Quinn Connolly, the 2008 Howard County middle-school champion.

“We did lose three seniors and we’re going to have to fill their shoes with some guys without a lot of experience,” said Mink. “We have some hard workers who have soaked up the sport and they force others to work harder. It’s a snow-balling effect.”

Taylor

The Titans finished ninth at Logansport a year ago, their best sectional finish in more than a decade.

“We’re just looking to continue building and improving on last year,” coach Matt Carlile said.

Julian Nieto leads the list of returnees that includes Shane Arnold, Ethan Martin, Nick Shane and Colin Osman. Senior newcomer Brock Newton takes the place of Kris Workman, who would be returning but has a broken leg.

“These guys put in some work over the summer and they’re looking as strong as ever,” said Carlile. “Julian Nieto, especially, is going to be our frontrunner.”

Northwestern

The Tigers add a dedicated group of freshmen to several holdovers from a disappointing 11th-place sectional finish.

“A couple of the older guys have already made comments about how competitive [practices] have become already, compared to other years,” coach Dave Stevens said. “Now they understand the competition among their own team is going to be stiff.”

Sam Freeman, who finished just one place shy of a regional bid last year, leads a group of five returning seniors that includes Nolan Cockrell, Hayden Jarvis, Alex Fruth and Jeremy Catt. Junior Kyle Condon also returns.

In theory that leaves just one spot open for newcomers Jacob Heredos, Dru Donovan, Jamie McLane and freshmen Logan Redman, Charlie Neher, Zach Duranto, Griffin Longshore and Josh Garner.

“We’re going to learn as we go along,” said Stevens. “The biggest challenge for everyone is to keep working hard.”