CROSS COUNTRY: Mac girls capture sectional title

Western girls, boys take runner-up finishes in sectional

Kokomo Tribune - Sunday, October 12, 2014

LOGANSPORT — Maconaquah has a proud tradition in girls cross country, and the Braves are once again sectional champions.

The Braves claimed their 11th title and first since 2003 on Saturday at the Logansport Sectional.

Western senior Nicole Hampshire was the individual champion with a time of 19:35.

Western’s boys team was edged out by Winamac by six points in the boys race. Kokomo finished third.

Maconaquah’s girls team had five runners finish in the top 17 and recorded 46 points to top runner-up Western (63). Winamac (69), Logansport (71) and Northwestern (157) also advanced to next Saturday’s Culver Academies Regional. The top five teams advanced.

Mac’s Olivia Winegardner and Madison Winegardner finished 4-5 in 20:17 and 20:49, respectively. They were followed by Kate White (11th, 21:20), Haley Wimmer (12th, 21:24) and Vanessa Frazier (17th, 21:41), as the Braves followed up their Mid-Indiana Conference title earlier in the week with a sectional crown.

“Western gave us a good run even on Tuesday as well. And all these schools have great coaching,” Mac coach Charlie Hubler said. “We knew that we had to be on top of our game. We ran real well. It was great excitement.

“The mile and mile-and-a-half mark, Winamac and Western were running great. They were both out in front of us. The race is three miles and we ran well in the woods and we ran real well that third mile. We stayed strong in the third mile, they were able to see each other. That relaxes you a little bit. You say, ‘hey, there’s a teammate.’ All seven girls just ran really well.”

Western’s Hampshire was ecstatic to follow up her MIC title with a sectional championship her senior year. She said she did not expect to win either race entering the week.

“Throughout this season I’ve ran mid-19s randomly, but then I’ve been in the mid-20s. So it was really, really nice to have a another race to remind myself that, oh yeah, I still can actually run that,” she said.

Hampshire tied her PR with the 19:35 on the difficult Logansport course which includes a long run through the woods known as the Berry Patch. Winamac’s Claire Collins was second (19:45) and Logansport’s Isabelle Crain was third (19:45).

“It’s a really good course,” Hampshire said. “It wasn’t muddy which I’m really happy about. It was a really, really good day, great weather, a good day to run.

“It was just a really, really good race. At the beginning there were a couple girls so I just went with them. Then I realized I was feeling good so I just left. It’s just really, really exciting. I never thought that I would win sectionals, ever.”

Following Hampshire for Western were Taylor Walden (7th, 21:10), Allison McMinn (16th, 21:40), Logan Buck (21st, 21:59) and Cora Johnson (23rd, 22:06).

Kate Bilkey led Northwestern with a 26th-place finish in 22:12. She was followed by Nicole Crocker (28th, 22:17), Jensen Freeman (40th, 23:07), Rachel Johns (43rd, 23:27) and Elizabeth Bolyard (23:46).

Eastern’s Avery Ewing (6th, 21:03), Peru’s Jesse Zvers (9th, 21:14), Anna Boyer (31st, 22:25) and Jaelin Richardson (32nd, 22:26), Cass’ Haley Johnson (10th, 21:20), Carroll’s Shari Bowers (19th, 21:43) and Samantha Dreadfulwater (24th, 22:07) and Taylor’s Cami Hansen (30th, 22:22) advanced to the regional as individuals.

BOYS RACE

In the boys event, Winamac (43) edged out MIC champ Western (49th) for its third ever sectional title and first since 1999. Kokomo (91), Logansport (123) and Peru (145) also advanced.

Winamac’s junior duo of Kyle Collins and Zen Zupin finished 1-2 in 16:33 and 16:43, respectively. Logan’s Jacob Graf was third (16:54) and Kokomo’s Ethan Sharp was fourth (17:05).

PANTHER: Joshua Everetts led Western’s boys to a runner-up finish in the sectional. Shown in the MIC meet on Tuesday, he was fifth in the sectional with a time of 17:12.

“Congrats first off to Winamac,” Western coach Gary Jewell said. “I said two years ago when those two guys were freshmen that they were going to do really well probably within the next two years. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be this year.”

Joshua Everetts led Western with a fifth-place finish in 17:12, followed by Riley Carter (6th, 17:16), Auston Davenport (8th, 17:35), Caleb Maddox (9th, 17:41) and Josh Scott (21st, 18:11).

“We’ve been a little up and down this year,” Jewell said. “I thought that it was probably going to come down to our fifth man — we weren’t hoping it’d be him winning the race for us. Josh (Scott) ran about what he’s been running, but we needed him to be about six or seven places a little higher. We felt if he finished in the top 15 we had a shot at winning because I knew we would be the only team to put four guys in the top 10. What was hard to overcome is Winamac’s 3-4-5 guys ran very well compared to where they’ve been running.

“It really comes down to we’re probably second place by only about 12 seconds.”

Kokomo’s Sharp, a junior who was the North Central Conference runner-up, was hampered en route to his fourth-place finish. He was 37 seconds off his PR.

“It was all right. I had a sinus infection so I couldn’t run that much,” he said.

Sharp was followed by Logan Hawk (18th, 18:00), Hanif Burnett (20th, 18:07), Jadyn Whitehead (23rd, 18:17) and Colten Pearce (26th, 18:26).

“We were banged up so we knew that we couldn’t get any better than third even if we were healthy,” Kokomo coach Ricke Stucker said. “We had four out of seven run well and you never like that. My No. 1 couldn’t breathe, had some other problems during the week. So we hope to run a little bit faster next week and fight for that fifth spot. Our No. 1 kid hopefully will be a little bit healthier and we’ll go up there and have a good time.”

Nathan Cole led Peru with a 13th-place finish in 17:50, followed by Christopher Estrada (25th, 18:23), Darryl Smith (27th, 18:28), Zach Hollis (31st, 18:34) and Dylan Commons (49th, 19:37).

Cass’ Cail Brown (7th, 17:26) and Lucas Bowman (34th, 18:48), Maconaquah’s Adam Root (16th, 17:58) and Quinn Reinhardt (22nd, 18:15), Eastern’s Brenton Cherry (19th, 18:01) and Evan Hursh (29th, 18:32) and Carroll’s John Cooper (36th, 18:54) and Colton Veach (38th, 18:56) advanced to the regional as individuals.