WARSAW — Warsaw’s boys demonstrated a pack mentality in their season-opener Tuesday evening. The Lady Tigers showed that that aspect of their race game was still a work in progress.

But in both cases, the strength of Warsaw cross country was on full display as the home teams opened the 2017 season with a pair of dominant showings at the Tiger Invitational.

Zeb Hernandez broke the tape in the boys’ race in 16:17.2, and the Tigers outpointed their only real competitor Homestead by a 29-43 margin. Mia Beckham easily outpaced the rest of the field in the girls’ run with an 18:56.9 stop, and the Lady Tigers held off Northern Lakes Conference foe NorthWood 47-76.

While there was some separation between Warsaw’s top five females, the boys bunched together on the way to four top 10 finishes and a total of seven of the top 20 spots.

The Tigers’ top four all finished within a minute of one another as Lucas Howett and Taylor Mills placed third and fourth, respectively, with times of 16:37.2 and 16:50.9, while Xavi Ramirez finished seventh in 17:17.1. Justin Fleming completed the home team’s score with a 17:30.6 stop, good enough for 14th place individually.

It was a refreshing start to the year for the team after a 2016 season that, while impressive, was lacking in one key ingredient.

“We just couldn’t get five guys on one page for the same race last year. It just never happened. Now here we are first race, and we’ve got five guys pretty much on the same page. So that’s a good start,” said Warsaw boys head coach Jim Mills.

“For our team, it’s really good because we were like (three) of the top five,” echoed Hernandez. “That’s a really good start for us. We’ve been training hard this season to make it to state, and by the looks of it, by this meet, it looks like we’d be able to.”

Homestead was the only team to challenge Warsaw on the boys’ side, and Spartan number one Ryan Ruppert was Hernandez’s only competition for the individual title. Ruppert still stuck to Hernandez going into the second stretch of woods at the Warsaw course, but when the Tiger junior emerged from the tract, he emerged alone and never surrendered the lead.

“My coach was telling me that Homestead was a really good team. I wasn’t sure of the times or anything, so once I realized that I had a little competition along with the team, it helped me improve as I was running in the race,” Hernandez explained.

Credit a competitive streak by the gutsy runner, says Mills.

“He gets irritated even in practice when people get close. He likes to kind of get away from them,” said Mills. “I think he got tired of that guy dogging him so he decided to open it up a little bit.”

Meanwhile, in the girls’ race, Beckham was never really challenged for the top spot.

Beckham’s 18:56 time was a full minute and a quarter better than the 20:09 stop of runner-up Emily McManus from Bishop Luers. The Lady Tiger alpha said she was hoping to break 19 minutes in her opener, and her winning time also represented a personal best on her home course. Beckham said she hopes it’s just a preview of what’s to come in her senior season.

“I felt good about this race. I really wanted to break 19 the first race. I didn’t do that last season I don’t think, and this was actually my best time on this course, which is kind of fun,” she said. “It’s just exciting to know it’s happening at the beginning of the season so hopefully the best is yet to come.”

The only other Lady Tiger to break into the top 10 Tuesday was Taylor Gunter, whose 20:41.2 earned her sixth place. It was the better part of a minute before two more Beckhams crossed the finish line for Warsaw as Adree placed 12th in 21:30.6, and Remi entered the chute right behind her with a 21:31.7 time for 13th. Amslie Howett wasn’t too far back with a 21:36.6 for 15th place.

“We have a lot of work to do after our number one,” said Warsaw girls coach Matt Campbell. “Taylor Gunter had a heck of a race today. We have three other girls that are capable of being with her, but we have a young team, a very inexperienced team so we’re still learning. But October is when it matters so that’s what we’re shooting for right now.”

After losing three of the team’s top five to graduation from last year’s state finalist squad, the Lady Tigers are still trying to close the gaps between runners, but it’s coming along, says Mia.

“The team this year, hopefully we’ll keep it together. I think we will. We’ve just started kind of competing as one now,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to have us all competing together when we’re kind of all separate times, but now that we’re kind of competing together more, I think we’ll come together well.”

NorthWood
NorthWood girls cross country coach Mark Mikel knew who his team’s main competition would be Tuesday, and he also had a simple strategy to beat them.

With Warsaw a likely dominant front-runner, Mikel figured the number two team spot would be up for grabs, and that it would likely boil down to a race between his Lady Panthers and Columbia City. The way to beat the Eagles would be to simply stick as close to the hosts as possible.

Actually, Bishop Luers slotted in between NorthWood and Columbia City, but the rest of Mikel’s game plan was spot on, and the Lady Panthers finished as Tiger Invite runners-up with a score of 76 ahead of Luers’ 83 and Columbia City’s 98.

“Going into tonight, looking at what Rochester and Columbia City had, I knew that was what it was going to be, and I noticed Rochester only put four people on the line tonight so they rested people obviously. So now it comes down to us and Columbia City for that second spot,” Mikel explained. “Our strategy was simple: Look at Warsaw, find Warsaw, race them because you know they’re going to go hard tonight, and if you do that you’ll probably get Columbia City. That was kind of the approach you took to get it done.”

“Great race, great effort by our girls,” he added. “We really respect Columbia City, Warsaw and the competition that they are. They really bring out the best in us. We hope to see them later down the road, say, at semi-state.”

Top honors among NorthWood’s girls belonged to Erica Stutsman, whose 20:33.5 earned her fourth place Tuesday. But it was a pack of Panthers that really propelled the team to its second-place standing at Warsaw.

Whitney Wolfe and Jennifer Martinez placed 16th and 17th, respectively, with times of 21:36.8 and 21:44.2, and Kate Jarvis and senior newcomer Breanne Resler finished 19th and 20th with respective times of 21:54.1 and 22.05 flat.

“That is our strength this year — we have a pack like we haven’t had before,” Mikel said.

“Those five are really, really good, but our six, seven, eight, nine, all the way down to about number 10 are not that far behind that group. That’s our strength is we’ve got a very solid pack.”

While Mikel had high hopes for the team in the girls run, NorthWood boys coach Justin Bell was more conservative in his predictions for the Panthers. His team’s third-place finish with a score of 124 behind Homestead genuinely surprised him, but he wasn’t about to argue with the result, either.

“I’m very surprised. We have a very young team — 13 freshmen, eight sophomores. A lot of those guys are figuring out what it takes to train correctly, and they’re starting to see the fruit of their effort,” said Bell. “It’s also encouraging to see a lot our ladies team do so well and as a whole program to see the momentum building, not only in the high school but in the middle school as well and for NorthWood in general. It’s exciting to see that.”

NorthWood’s only boy to claim individual top 20 hardware was Tyler Evers, and his 17:29.3 stop earned him 13th place. It was a heartening finish for the Panther leader.

“Tyler has watched a couple of our number one runners in the past and has learned from that. Stepping up into that number one spot as a junior involves some nerves at first dealing with the pressure of that position, but I think today he made a lot of progress of what it looks like to be our number one,” Bell said. “And being a junior I’m excited to have him another year where he can set an example for our younger guys on what that position looks like.”

Next in line for NorthWood was Garrett Myers in 27th place with a time of 18:29.8, while Arron Smith finished 35th in 18:52.6, Stephen Schmidt was 39th in 19:04.7, and Lane Flowers placed 49th in 19:20.1. Teammate Daniel Hochstetler was a fraction of a second back in 50th with a 19:20.7 stop.

Tippecanoe Valley
Tippy Valley’s girls wound up in eighth place with a 235 score. Jadyn Kolesiak was 51st in 23:56.5 to lead the Lady Vikings. Ava Craig was 64th in 24:41.6, and Valeria Jimenez was 67th in 24:55.9. Haley Hoover finished 70th in 25:10.2, and Lorena Santiago was 92nd in 26:54.6.

The Valley boys team placed 10th with a score of 233 Tuesday. Jorden Owens was 73rd in 19:56.4, Colt Demske was 85th in 20:27.1, and Howes Matthews was 86th in 20:27.4. Mitch Smith finished 95th in 20:47.1, and Justin Peconga was 103rd in 21:12.9.