Warsaw Boys End Season At Semistate
BY TIM CREASON
NEW CARLISLE – It’s fair to say Jim Mills was … ahh … not pleased Saturday.
“This is probably the worst race we ran all year,” said the Warsaw boys cross country coach following his team’s eighth-place finish at the New Prairie semistate.
Owen Glogovsky’s 36th place individual finish and Daniel Messenger’s 53rd weren’t enough to pull the Tigers to a fourth consecutive state meet appearance.
The top six teams at semistate advance to next week’s IHSAA state finals in Terre Haute, as well as the top 10 individuals who are not members of a qualifying team.
Warsaw didn’t fill either bill, as the Tigers scored 273 points, and Glogovsky was nine places away from individual advancement.
Mills didn’t pull any punches afterwards.
“We just ran tired today, that’s all I can figure out,” the coach said. “We really thought we had an outside chance. Quite frankly, as badly as we ran, I’m shocked we were even eighth.”
No. 2-ranked West Lafayette dominated the meet as few ever have, sweeping both team and individual titles.
The Red Devils set a semistate low-point record of 35, placing five scoring runners among the top 12. Munster was second with 51.
West Lafayette junior Cooper Williams, meanwhile, won the 5,000-meter race unpressed in 15:51.1.
While Glogovsky wasn’t looking for a win, it’s fair to say he was hoping for better than 36th place in 17:02.5. After all, he was third at last week’s Culver Academies regional.
Same story for most of the Tigers.
Messenger clocked 17:10.3. Freshman Lucas Howett – one of the bright spots – was 62nd in 17:16.0
Jonathan Beres was 87th and Jacob Deboest placed 125th in 18:09.2 as the Tigers exhibited a 1:07 gap amongst their scoring runners.
“We just haven’t run very well all year,” said Mills. “I don’t think we’ve had a race where we put five guys on the same page.
“I think we’re wore out with the way we’ve raced. We’ve been erratic all year. I just think it has taken a toll.”
If anything, the coach hopes that Saturday’s experience will be a wake-up lesson for next year’s team.
“We’ve got some good guys coming back next year, but the atmosphere on this team has got to change,” said Mills. “We’re already thinking about that.”
IHSAA SEMISTATE BOYS
At New Carlisle
Team scores: West Lafayette 35 (Low-score record), Munster 51, Crown Point 135, Valparaiso 152, Lake Central 156, Lafayette Jeff 188, LaPorte 214, Warsaw 273, Portage 279, Chesterton 279 (sixth-runner tie-breaker), Michigan City 311, Rochester 320, Winamac 338, McCutcheon 362, Culver Academies 374, Harrison (West Lafayette) 391, Highland 402, Lowell 436, Western 440, Twin Lakes 524.
Top 25 finishers: 1, Cooper Williams (W Lafayette) 15:51.1. 2, Ryan Kritzer (Munster) 15:56.7. 3, Daniel Dalton (Valparaiso) 16:13.9. 4, Ryan Kepshire (Crown Pt) 16:16.9. 5, Tyler Keslin (Munster) 16:20.2. 6, Donm Patacsil (W Lafayette) 16:22.2. 7, Kyle Collins (Winamac) 16:22.8. 8, Evan Johnson (W Lafayette) 16:23.0. 9, Jake Cohen (W Lafayette) 16:25.0. 10, Theo Burgwald (Munster) 16:26.0. 11, Joel O’Shea (Wheeler) 16:26.9. 12, Dylan Williams (W Lafayette) 16:30.0. 13, Kameron Konopasek (Lake Central) 16:30.9. 14, Matthew Mosak (Crown Pt) 16:34.1. 15, Zen Zupin (Winamac) 16:34.3. 16, Theodoraki Medrano (Benton Central) 16:34.3. 17, Cody Bray (Frankfort) 16:34.5. 18, Emmanuel Lopez (Munster) 16:34.5. 19, Bryce Gawronski (Kankakee Valley) 16:35.7. 20, Sam Miller (LaPorte) 16:36.2. 21, Caleb Chapman (So Newton) 16:39.2. 22, Cayce Griffin (Lafayette Jeff) 16:40.2. 23, David Kampf (New Prairie) 16:44.6. 24, Adam Fields (McCutcheon) 16:46.0. 25, Scott Farley (Munster) 16:47.6.
WARSAW: 36, Owen Glogovsky 17:02.5 … 53, Daniel Messenger 17:10.3 … 62, Lucas Howett 17:16.0 … 87, Jonathan Beres 17:40.4 … 125, Jacob Deboest 18:09.2 … 130, Avery Torres 18:12.6 … 152, Nick Bergen 18:35.8.
TRITON: 122, Derek Johnston 18:06.8.
NOTE: Top six teams and top 10 individual finishers who are not members of qualifying teams advance to IHSAA state finals in Terre Haute on Saturday, Nov. 1.