New Prairie XC Semistate: Beckham Third; Earns State Spot
Warsaw senior Mia Beckham heads to a third-place finish in the New Prairie Semistate Saturday (Photos by Tim Creason)
By TIM CREASON
NEW CARLISLE – Mia Beckham knows how bad she feels when someone passes her. So, when she’s the one doing the passing, she knows what a lift she’s getting.
“I guess I used that to my advantage,” said Beckham, a Warsaw senior who passed a whole bunch of other runners Saturday on her way to a third-place individual finish at the New Prairie girls cross country semistate.
Surging up from the back of the lead pack, Beckham covered New Prairie’s famed 5,000-meter course – a little tore up due to construction at the high school – in 18 minutes, 20.2 seconds.
In doing so, she earned a trip to next weekend’s IHSAA state finals at the Wabash Valley Sports Center in Terre Haute.
Her Tiger teammates, however, can’t say the same. For the first time in seven years, Warsaw’s girls will not run as a group at the state meet, following a ninth-place semistate finish.
The top six teams advance to state, which starts at 1:45 p.m. next Saturday. Also advancing are the top 10 individuals who are not members of a qualifying program.
To nobody’s surprise, No. 5-ranked Valparaiso took the girls team title, placing five runners among the top 10 finishers and scoring 72 points. No. 15 Lowell was second at 116.
Warsaw scored 264.
“You know, we’ve been off all season, to be honest,” said Warsaw coach Matt Campbell. “We have girls running a minute slower than last year. The investment over the summer just wasn’t there.”
Emma Bohnenkamper, a senior with an outside chance to qualify for state as an individual, ran a personal best 19:46.4 and finished 36th place, moving up from 55th midway through the race.
That still left her about 25 seconds shy of state qualification, though.
After that, over a minute passed before the next Tiger finisher reached the finish line.
Emma Bohnenkamper competes for the Tigers.
Angie Sanchez-Vijil, Carmen Yoder and Remi Beckham ran in a nice pack, but none finished among the top 100. Sanchez-Vijil clocked 21:02.7 for 101st place.
“There’s only so much you can do,” said Campbell. “We’ve had a lot of inconsistency. It starts in the summer. If you don’t invest in the summer, you don’t know what’s going to happen. In previous years, we came here with so much confidence. Not this time.”
The one Tiger who definitely did do her summer training was Mia Beckham, and it showed as she moved from about 12thplace to third over the final mile, passing a lot of well-known runners along the way.
“Mia killed it. I am so proud of her. She has looked amazing in workouts lately,” said Campbell.
“I felt really relaxed today,” said Beckham. “Before the race, I told myself, ‘You’ve been training at 17:30 pace, so your body is used to it.”
With each runner she picked off Saturday, her confidence grew.
“I’ve been passed a lot of times and I know how much it (stinks), mentally,” she said. “Me being able to do it to other runners, that was a real (boost).”
Now it’s on to the state finals, where Beckham will be gunning for a Top 20 finish and a trip to the IHSAA awards podium.
“Mia is ready,” said Campbell. “Oh yeah, she’s ready.”
IHSAA GIRLS CROSS COUNTRY SEMISTATE
At New Carlisle
GIRLS
TEAM SCORES: Valparaiso 72, Lowell 116, West Lafayette 138, LaPorte 143, Crown Point 164, Chesterton 164, Lake Central 257, Twin Lakes 259, Warsaw 264, Munster 296, Rensselaer Central 296, Hobart 327, McCutcheon 33, Benton Central 343, Harrison (Lafayette) 346, Rochester 367, Maconaquah 382, Portage 393, Culver Academies 471, Western 551.
TOP 20 FINISHERS: 1, Jordyn Boyer (Lowell) 17:58.7. 2, Ava Gilliana (Valparaiso) 18:13.4. 3, Mia Beckham (Warsaw) 18:20.2. 4, Maggie Gutwein (Twin Lakes) 18:28.2. 5, Logan Ferngren (Valparaiso) 18:28.9. 6, Shelby Bullock (Chesterton) 18:32.9. 7, Hannah Wylie (Crown Pt) 18:40.6. 8, Maddie Russin (Crown Pt) 18:47.3. 9, Katerina Shuble (LaPorte) 18:47.4. 10, Miah Martin (Lewis Cass) 18:54.2. 11, Mary Schultz (West Lafayette) 18:58.9. 12, Shelby Riehle (LaPorte) 19:01.2. 13, Myah Krintz (Harrison-Lafayette) 19:01.7. 14, Hailey Orosz (Wheeler) 19:04.3. 15, Isabel Weise (Benton Central) 19:05.1. 16, Morgan Fleming (Rensselaer Central) 19:05.4. 17, Caroline Jordan (West Lafayette) 19:07.7. 18, Madison Winegardner (Maconaquah) 19:08.3. 19, Emily Worthington (Valparaiso) 19:11.1. 20, Brenda McNeal (Merrillville) 19:12.8.
OTHER WARSAW FINISHERS: 36, Emma Bohnenkamper 19:46.4 … 101, Angie Sanchez-Vijil 21:02.7 … 103, Carmen Yoder 21:03.2 … 105, Remi Beckham 21:03.5 … 122, Taylor Gunter 21:22.9 … 157, Adree Beckham 22:28.7.
NOTE: Top six teams in each race advance to IHSAA state finals in Terre Haute on Saturday, Oct. 28. Also advancing are the Top 10 individuals who are not members of qualifying teams.
IHSAA officials: Ted Noffsinger, Curt Parrish, Steve Caswell.
Remi Beckham.
Carmen Yoder (at right) and Angie Sanchez-Vijil (in back) of the Tigers.
