Warsaw’s Mia Beckham paces with Elkhart Memorial’s Morgan Dyer at the front of the pack Saturday morning. Beckham would go on to win her third straight title, Dyer finishing second. (Photos by Mike Deak)

ELKHART – Mia Beckham made a statement of her own, claiming her third straight Northern Lakes Conference title at the NLC Cross Country Championships Saturday morning at Ox Bow.

Beckham knew it was her race to lose, having taking the title in each of the last two years. Running stride for stride with Elkhart Memorial phenom Morgan Dyer, Beckham used her course experience to pull away from the Elkhart sophomore to claim the blue ribbon once again.

“I wasn’t expecting to go out that slow, but Morgan and I made up for it later” said Beckham, who ran an 18:39 to Dyer’s 18:45. “It just really came down to who wanted it. I wanted that third straight title. I worked for it and wanted it. That last 4K, I was almost in a sprint. I didn’t want to lose it.”

But unlike the past two years, Warsaw didn’t have the mustangs in front with Beckham to secure a team title. While Warsaw posted all five of its runners in the top 15, Northridge peppered the top of the chart in what has been a broken record of late. Ridge had three in the top six, and the other two in the top 17 to compile 43 points to edge Warsaw’s 48 points.

Emma Bohnenkamper finished ninth for the Lady Tigers at 20:02, leading in both Taylor Gunter (11, 20:19) and Remi Beckham (12, 20:21) with Carmen Yoder the fifth score (15, 20:45). Ridge had Jenna Miller, Caitlin Clark and Mackenzie Adams third, fourth and sixth to aid its cause.

“Our gap from our one to two is hurting us,” noted Warsaw head coach Matt Campbell. “We have a solid pack and was happy to see us all get top 15, but it would be nice to see us get some more of those low sticks. Bohnenkamper had a PR today and we had some others step up, but we just fell a little short.”

Concord was third at 86 and NorthWood fourth at 98. Wawasee (140) bested Goshen (194), but trailed Memorial (136) in what could be a race for regional next week per Lady Warrior head coach Doug Slabaugh.

“Some of the teams we have to beat at sectionals, we saw them all today,” Slabaugh said. “We didn’t beat a couple of them, but we are in the mix of where we need to be. Position-wise, Caitlin (Wortinger) and Kenzie (Smith) fell off a little from where they were, otherwise we finish fifth today. Overall, we just need to run better next week. Bottom line.”

Wawasee had Smith claim 14th place with her time of 20:36, but fell off the pace of the second wave about midway through the race. Wortinger (27, 21:19), Aubrey Kuhn (30, 22:04), Reagan Atwood (34, 22:23) and Autumn Turner (35, 22:26) made up Wawasee’s scoring runners.

NorthWood had Erica Stutsman lead the team with an eighth-place run of 20:01. Kate Jarvis (16, 20:53), Whitney Wolfe (21, 21:04), Jen Martinez (24, 21:12) and Hannah Brubaker (29, 22:02) comprised the Lady Panther scorers.

In the JV race, the Lady Tigers had all five of its scoring girls in the top 13, paced by Megan Metzger’s runner-up time of 20:52. Megan Dawson was seventh overall at 21:04.

Warsaw will move onto the Culver Academy Sectional as the prohibitive favorite, having won the title there in each of the past five years in both boys and girls grids. Wawasee and NorthWood will compete back at Ox Bow in the Elkhart Central Sectional.