Tigers Triumph At NLCs
ELKHART – Life nearly imitated art at the Northern Lakes Conference Cross Country Championships. Warsaw returned to the top of the NLC mountain in both the boys and girls team standings after quality showings at Saturday’s races at Ox Bow Park.
After losing to Northridge in a tight round robin race in September, Warsaw’s girls packed it in to slip past the Raiders by two points, 35-37. With both teams placing four positions each in the top nine, the fifth score became the difference. That went to Warsaw’s Erika Bugg, who came home from the 5,000 meters at 20:38, sitting prettier than Northridge’s five, Hayley Troyer, who clocked 21:20 and 19th place.
Warsaw had Wini Barnett make a furious race to the finish line to catch defending champion Morgan Dyer and place second at 18:54. Ava Knight was fifth (19:53), Amanda Lusinde was eighth (20:18) and Adree Beckham was ninth (20:24). Ridge was led by race champion Haylee Hile and her winning time of 18:43. Dyer was third at 19:06.
By way of splitting the regular season title, won by Ridge 7-0, and Warsaw (6-1) winning Saturday’s table, the two become the second Warsaw-Northridge NLC split joining girls soccer in the formality after the two were 6-0-1 after their soccer draw Thursday.
“We knew this was going to be a place race today, and knew this was going to be really close,” said Warsaw girls head coach Jason Fleming. “We came in with a plan. The girls knew what they had to do and for the most part, that plan paid off. A lot of today was mental preparation and knowing the course. Really we just wanted to execute our plan and see where it got us.”
NorthWood placed fifth in the table with 129 points. Kaitlin Burden kept up with the leaders for much of the race before falling back into the leader’s trail to take 13th at 20:46. Rounding out NorthWood’s work were Emilie Allen (20, 21:24), Megan Miller (25, 21:44), Mia Wellington (32, 22:05) and Reese Barhydt (39th, 22:24).
Wawasee landed seventh in the standings with 165 points. Emma Ebright ran with Burden for most of the circuit, and placed about the same with a 17th-place run of 21:18. Wrapping Wawasee’s pack were Cammy Kryder (34, 22:08), Ella Beezley (36, 22:11), Bailey Mayhew (38, 22:23) and Lily Tyler (40, 22:26).
The Warsaw boys made it official in a basic chalk walk. After going 7-0 in the round robin, Warsaw scored 51 points to best Goshen (6-1) and its 62 points. It wasn’t a typical Warsaw win, however, as opposed to year’s past where the Tigers have a gunner and someone else right on their heels, Warsaw kept all five of its scorers within a minute of each other. Jacob Kissling led the Tigers with a finish of 16:27, taking fifth. As Kissling hit the chute, right behind were Sam Lechlitner at 16:29 and Tanner Stiver at 16:33, good for seventh and eighth place. Fernando Niebbia was part of the next wave in to take 14th (17:12) and Austin Fleming, in just his second year of competitive cross country, was 17th, four seconds back of Niebbia, his first NLC scoring run.
“We’ve been doing this all year,” stated Warsaw boys head coach Jim Mills. “We do not have a stud runner like in the past. But what we’ve got are seven guys, this is just the way we’ve run all year, in a big clump. We’ve said if we want to get out of New Prairie (semi-state), which is our goal, we have to keep making that gap smaller and smaller. And they have been doing it.”
Goshen had the race champion in Drew Hogan, who led virtually wire to wire in clocking 16:06, and riding on the smoke was Cole Johnston for third place at 16:17. Goshen fell off Warsaw’s pace by having to take a 37 in its fifth score, 20 higher than Fleming’s mark.
NorthWood, which took sixth place in the round robin, also took sixth on Saturday at 119. Brady Hunsberger led the Panthers with a 17:02, 11th overall. Eric Hochstetler was 21st (17:23), followed by Jordan Burden (24, 17:26), Sam Schlatter (31, 17:36) and Garrett Myers (32, 17:40).
Wawasee hoped its pack would stay together, and for the most part, it did. However, it didn’t make the advancement it hoped in landing in the bottom half of the race standings. Karlson Hand had one of his better efforts to lead the Warriors, running 17:09 and 13th overall. Michael Hammer, normally Wawasee’s ace, came into the race with some nagging injuries and showed the lag in a 17:36 and 30th. From there, Jace Alexander (46, 18:17), Cam Powell (52, 18:44) and Trevor Smith (54, 19:08) were Wawasee’s three pack scorers.
“Karlson had a great run, but he was close to 17 minutes and near a PR,” said Wawasee boys head coach Chad Hoffert. “Jace has continued to improve and we’ve seen some signs of improvement. The race was extremely competitive today. Just good runners up and down the line, which is what you want to see this time of year.”
Northridge made the biggest jump of any team in the NLC, finishing 1-6 in the boys round robin and seventh, but had Jack Moore and Jaxon Miller finish second and fourth in the race to elevate the Raiders to third in the championship standings.