Berries fall just short

Pharos-Tribune - Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Western supplants Logan as sectional champion

Cross country is a grueling sport that provides each of its participants plenty of adversity to deal with on a daily basis.

Logansport's boys cross country team has certainly faced its fair share of adversity this season, and despite that the Berries nearly were able to repeat as sectional champions Tuesday at the Berry Patch course.

But Western was able to edge Logan by five points, 74-79, to reclaim the title.

"We knew that's how dose the race would be," Logan coach Chuck LaDow said. 'We knew that not being able to hang a 1or a 2 on the board could have the potential to hurt us. [Western'sj Matt Grider's a tough kid, a quality he put that 2 on the board. Every other spot we were better than them, so that's the difference-maker right there."

Logan was led by a freshman, Jacob Graf, who finished 10th in 17:18. The Berries' top runner most of the season, junior Kyle Jordan, placed 11th in 17:21.

"We're certainly not making any excuses because everyone ran really well, but Kyle's been feeling a little still under the weather, turned in a 17:21, but when you're not feeling good 10 seconds is eight spots in a race like [Tuesdays]," LaDow said. "We're going to regroup. Heading into the regional we're certainly in that mix of six teams that can go. Maybe we can get our revenge on Western and punch our ticket to New Prairie Saturday up at Culver"

The feel-good story of the night for the Berries was that junior Travis Palmer placed 12th in 17:24. Just over two months ago Palmer was in an intensive care unit following a car crash.

"He passed lots of kids coming into the finish. ... Pm pretty sure he ran his third-fastest race of his career and he's only been back practicing for three weeks," LaDow said. "For a kid who the initial phone call was 'it doesn't look good, he's not going to make it,' that's what we said over there, we could have been running in good memory of our good friend and instead he helped us out"

Audie Kaufman placed 22nd (17:54) and Alex Calisto finished 24th (17:55) for Logan.

Carroll also advanced as a team to Saturday's Culver Academies Regional with a top-five finish, finishing third with 117 points. The Cougars were led by Brian Bordner, who finished third overall in 16:44.

Eastern's Lewis Duke was the overall champion in 16:04. Grider placed runner-up in 16:09.

Winamac's Kyle Collins (7th, 17:13) and Zen Zupin (13th, 17:25) also earned top 15 finishes as individuals to advance to the regional, as did Pioneefs Dylan Bice (8th, 17:15).

In the girls event, No. 6-ranked Eastern won with a perfect score of 15 points. Eastern senior Bethany Neeley won her fourth consecutive sectional title with a time of 183Z and her twin sister Brittany Neeley was second in 1936.

Northwestern was second with 86 points, followed by Cass (97) and Carroll (126). Logan grabbed the fifth and final spot in the regional with 140 points, topping Western by the sixth-score tie-breaker.

Gabi Carney led the Kings with a seventh-place finish (20:24), followed by Jenna Yeakley (14th, 21-00), Haley Johnson (16th, 21:33), Breanne Robertson (26th, 22:36) and Makenzie Hoch (34th, 22:43).

"I really liked how Mckenzie Hoch ran," Cass coach Don Bonsett said. "She didn't get to run at our conference and it kind of hurt us a little bit and she had a good race. She had been ailing a little bit and came back and put together a good race for us that helped us move up a little bit closer to Northwestern. We knew we were going to be dose to Northwestern, we wanted to be a little bit closer but overall the girls ran well."

Bridget Peden (8th, 20:47) and Shari Bowers (9th, 20:54) led Carroll.

Megan Martin paced Logan with a 19th-place finish in 21:57, followed by Maddi Zartman (20th, 22:01), Alanna Echols (29th, 22:40), Ashlyn Lythgoe (32nd, 22:42) and Carlie Deardorff (40th, 23:11). Jennifer Kreighbaum had the sixth score for Logan, placing 41st in 23:13, beating Western's sixth score by 19 places. Logan coach Brian Morrill said five of the seven runners for the Berries ran a personal-best time.

'It was a gutsy effort by all seven We knew it was going to be dose and we stressed that every place was going to count, and it sure did," Morrill said. I'm so proud of the way the girls ran. We have three freshmen and two sophomores in our top seven, so we can build on this for next year."

Winamac's Kial Beach placed 12th in 20:55 to advance.