A TOUGHER TRAILBOYS XC: Howard County 2023 season previewLocal harriers to embark on a new postseason path |
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Kokomo Tribune August 23, 2023By BRYAN GASKINS AND PEDRO VELAZCOKokomo Tribune The boys cross country season gets rolling with a significant change looming at the finish line. The IHSAA changed the postseason format for boys and girls by reducing the tournament by one week. The semistate round has gone by the wayside. The regular season extends one week longer as the state tournament now consists of just three rounds — sectionals, regionals and state. There are now 25 sectionals and five regionals. At each round, the top five teams and top 15 individuals not on an advancing team advance to the following week of competition. The IHSAA wanted more balance at the sectional level with the intent of more competitive action at each round of the postseason. Not everyone is convinced the new format will achieve that. The local sectional at Logansport features 16 teams, including all five Howard County teams — Eastern, Kokomo, Northwestern, Taylor, and Western — as well as Tribune-area squads Carroll, Cass, Maconaquah and Peru. Also in the fold are Caston, Clinton Central, Clinton Prairie, Frankfort, Logan, Pioneer, and Rossville. Last year, Maconaquah was the Logansport Sectional champion, followed by Northwestern, Cass, Pioneer and Logan. “Our sectional will be more competitive than it’s been in recent history, but it will still be manageable,” Western coach Gary Jewell said. Advancing teams will head to the Brownsburg Regional along with the Harrison, Indianapolis North Central, Terre Haute North and Ben Davis sectionals. Only four teams who feed into those regionals reached state last year — champion Carmel, Zionsville (second), Brebeuf Jesuit (11th) and West Lafayette (24th). “Our new regional site is off the wall,” Jewell said. “The list of teams that could be competing for a state meet berth looks like a state meet: Carmel, Zionsville, Brebeuf, North Central, Brownsburg, Avon, Ben Davis, Terre Haute North, Terre Haute South, Northview, West Lafayette, Harrison, McCutcheon, Lafayette Jeff. “There will be some ‘frequent fliers,’ i.e. teams that are frequently in the state finals, who will get left out this year and they’re not going to be happy. “For sure if you make it out of this regional, you should do well at state.” Advancing local teams will face a lot of different challengers in the regional round. “The tournament restructure is a big change,” Northwestern coach Josh Perry said. “It’s hard to say exactly how it will affect us. We are ready for the challenge of heading south for [the regional]. We had a competitive semistate with lots of good northern teams, so I don’t expect too much of a change.” Below are previews of the five Howard County schools. NORTHWESTERN The Tigers have a new look after winning the sectional in 2021 and finishing as runners-up last year. “We graduated our top three runners last year. That’s a big blow to any team,” Perry said. “Luckily, we have a strong group to follow up behind them and we have a few exciting freshmen joining as well.” The returning runners are seniors Jacob Bumgardner and Matthew Mitchell, junior Andrew Lesko and sophomores Ryland Barnes and Kaden Herschberger. In the sectional last year, Mitchell (16th), Bumgardner (19th) and Lesko (24th) had top-25 finishes. Freshmen Mason Broeker and Issac Everson are promising additions to the team and sophomore Sam Martin is also in the mix. “I have a good idea of who our top six runners will be. The order might change throughout the season, but we have a solid group leading the way,” Perry said. “I’m excited that I don’t know who our seventh runner will be. … Sam Martin and Kaden Herschberger have been pushing each other to fight back and forth for the last spot. That will really help our team as they both put pressure on the top six.” Perry is expecting a tough sectional field this year. He said as many as five teams are talented enough to win it in most years. “This should be one the most competitive sectionals we have had in a long time. We should be in the mix, but it will take a great season for anyone to win with how good the competition is,” he said. WESTERN The Panthers finished one spot out of the last sectional advancing spot last fall. Now they take aim again with a rejuvenated lineup. “This year we’ve had an influx of talent that is making an immediate impact,” Jewell said. “Add to that the year-to-year progression that you expect from consistent training and you suddenly have a team that turns heads.” Starting at the top, senior semistate qualifier Aden Yeary and sophomore regional qualifier Camden Raab are 1-2 in the lineup. At the start of the season, the No. 3 runner is sophomore Miles Rudy, who played tennis last season. The No. 4 is freshman Maddox Carver, who was the top runner in Western’s middle school program last year. And the No. 5 runner is Lincoln McKillip. Freshmen Jace Bagley and John Gilbert are 6 and 7. “It helps a lot having Aden Yeary and Camden Raab near the front,” Jewell said. “Those single-digit numbers in the scoring really add up. When it comes to setting the example, I don’t think you can find two better ones than those two guys. Both had breakout seasons on the track last spring and they’ve kept the ball rolling.” Two more who Jewell thinks can challenge for a spot in the top 7 are junior Noel Wittenbach and senior Kole Shock. Also on the squad are seniors Monte Babb, Avery Berryman and Justin Cline, juniors Noah Broyles and Porter McKillip, and freshman Jimi Oguntoye. Raab, Yeary, Berryman and Shock ran on the sectional squad last season with Raab taking 17th and Yeary taking 30th to lead the returnees. Western won the season-opening Northwestern Combination meet last week. |
Western’s Aden Yeary,, left, and Pioneer’s Carson Meyer and Leighton Dodt run in the Jacob Graf Memorial Cross Country Invitational on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023, at Logansport. Yeary is one of the Panthers’ top runners. Kelly Lafferty Gerber | Kokomo Tribune
“We probably won’t be sneaking up on anyone the rest of the season like we did [last] Tuesday night, but that’s OK,” Jewell said. “Being the hunted keeps you from becoming complacent.” EASTERN The Comets are led by junior Obi Greene, who in 2022 took fifth in the Hoosier Heartland Conference meet and 14th in the sectional “Obi will be our top guy this year,” Eastern coach Ben Cox said. “Even though it was a 3K, rather than 5K, his 9:49 at the Northwestern Combination was over a minute better than last year, so he’s starting the season in a good place.” The Comets finished ninth in the sectional as a team. Senior Kamp Miller, junior Gavin Sonafrank and sophomores Jakob Bertoline, Amos Greene and Reagan Long also return for the Greentown gang and Cox said junior Charlie Kendall is in the mix for a spot. “I’m really happy to be working with them. The boys have been putting effort into training and they looked good at Northwestern,” Cox said. “We still have boys who are coming out late [three came out last week] so we’ll still be working out how we all fit together for a little while.” Cox said the tournament restructuring forces the Comets to take a different view. “[It] put more teams in every sectional so moving on as a team has become more difficult. We’ll be looking to place as high as we can, but also for individual advancement in the tournament,” he said. KOKOMO The Wildkats are looking to take strides forward after finishing 10th in the sectional last year. “Our team had a really good summer of workouts and has had a good start to the school year,” Kats coach Jordan Ousley said. “The key I have stressed with them is consistency and I think they have done a good job of doing that so far this season. We have nine boys on the team which is an increase from last season. We have all of the kids back from last season who saw varsity experience, so I am hopeful that will help translate into better times and placements as the season progresses.” Juniors Kelton Serra and Connor Frederick lead the Kats’ returning runners. “Kelton has made the regional the last two seasons so he has good experience,” Ousley said. “Connor had a great offseason and has come back this season already improved from last year so we are looking to him to help our team make a jump this season.” Junior Gabe Newland, senior Adam Kemper and sophomore Ben Wallace also are back from last season. Sophomores Cooper Cage, Preston Arreola, Braxton Frederick and Ethan Lytle are promising additions to the team. “Cooper Cage is new to our team, but he ran track last spring and qualified for the regional in the 1,600-meter run,” Ousley said. “As far as No. 1 runner right now, it is probably Cooper Cage with Connor and Kelton coming in right behind him,” he added. “Our team has the potential to have a pack in the 4-7 spots depending on the day — all those kids are really close to one another in terms of current capabilities.” Ousley expects the team to have its ups and downs, but he is hoping the Kats can challenge for a middle-of-the pack finish in the North Central Conference meet and a top-half finish in the sectional. He’d love to see the Kats make a push to qualify for the regional as a team or send individuals to the regional. TAYLOR Former Kokomo and IU Kokomo runner Julian Wallace is the Titans’ new coach. As a senior at KHS in 2019, he took 26th place in the 800-meter run at the state track meet. “I had reached out to my former [KHS] basketball coach, now the new AD at Taylor, Robert Wonnell, if he needed any help out at Taylor with coaching last year and this spot needed to be filled for the fall and I jumped at the opportunity to begin my [coaching] career,” Wallace said. Wallace knows the Titans need revitalized. He is focusing on building the program. He said that needs to include the middle school. “I have one boy, Braden Wunderlich, who has been progressing very well as a sophomore. He’s already dropped well over a minute off of his personal record in the early season. He’s been slowly building confidence within himself so he can empower my middle school boys that look up to him. The goal for him is to make it out of the sectional as an individual into the regional of the newly formatted state cross country tournament,” Wallace said. “My main goal for the program is to ensure that I build a sense of camaraderie among the group. If a kid is struggling to finish a workout, I want my kids to jump in and help them finish. The group I have now thoroughly has that down and it’s been amazing to see. It’ll be a grind to get the program on its feet, but I am happy with where we are right now.” |