Published: October 15, 2008 01:09 am            

CROSS COUNTRY: Dragon boys repeat again at Southwestern

HANOVER — It was a day of repeats for the Silver Creek boys’ cross country team in the Southwestern Sectional at Hanover College.

The Dragons tallied 41 points to win their fourth consecutive sectional title and their eighth in the last nine years. Leading the way for Silver Creek was senior Brendan Chwalek, who won his second straight individual sectional crown in a time of 16:52.

“I thought the guys ran a pretty smart race, given the hot, humid conditions and the toughness of the course,” Dragons’ head coach Al Eckert said. “They got off to a real good start and put themselves in a good position to move up throughout the race. Brendan obviously had a very good race. He’s had his ups and downs, and it was nice to see him go out his senior year and win the sectional championship.”

Joining Silver Creek at Saturday’s Bedford North Lawrence Regional will be Jeffersonville, which placed fifth with 111 points. The top five teams and top 15 individuals qualified for regional.

Three Clark County girls’ teams earned trips to Bedford. Jeff wound up second with 74 points, while Silver Creek was third with 82. Henryville placed fifth with 144, beating Jennings County for the final qualifying spot by one point.



BOYS

Two other Silver Creek runners joined Chwalek in the top five. Junior Jack Eckert finished fourth, while classmate Aaron Beck was fifth. Rounding out the scoring for the Dragons were Eli Staton in 16th and Corey Alford in 19th.

“Our top three guys really finished strong, and our four and five guys beat the other schools’ four and five guys,” Coach Eckert said. “Everybody did their job today, so it was an all-around team effort.”

Eckert likes his team’s chances of getting out of Saturday’s regional and earning a spot at the Brown County Semistate on Oct. 25.

“If we can run a little bit better than we did, we’ll be right there,” he said. “I really don’t know a whole lot about the other teams. We just want to make sure we’re in the top five, so we’ve got a chance to go to semistate and maybe make it to state.”

Only one Red Devil cracked the top 10, as junior Joey Coats finished seventh. Jeff freshman Conor Richardson was 21st, while teammate Kie Sutherland ran 29th. Also for the Devils, T.J. Kimbrell finished 32nd and Tony Holloway placed 33rd.

“We underperformed today. We were fortunate enough to get out and have a chance to run at regionals. We looked pretty exhausted today,” Rhinehart said. “We didn’t perform well last year here either. This course seems to have our number. We’re going to have to get it figured out for next year. I’m tired of sweating when the team results come in.”

Henryville finished seventh as a team with 217 points, followed by Charlestown in eighth (228) and New Washington in 10th (253).



GIRLS

Jeff had three sophomores finish in the top 12. Rachelle Thomas was eighth, Connie Chan placed 11th and Jessica Mosqueda finished 12th. Red Devil junior Shelby Simcoe was 21st, while teammate Carly Inman placed 22nd.

But Jeff was no match for sectional champion Madison, which placed five runners in the top six to tally 19 points.

“They did a good job,” Jeff head coach Tom Kendall said about his team’s performance. “It’s really a tough course. The times were slow, but placement-wise we did well.”

The star for Silver Creek was Olivia Horvath. The junior finished second in 20:35, 21 seconds behind sectional champion Chelsea Stephan of the Cubs.

Rounding out the scoring for the Dragons were Chelsea Schrader in 14th, Emily Warren in 16th, Olivia Fitchett in 17th and Cassie Hisle in 34th.

At the beginning of the season, Coach Eckert was not sure if he would have enough runners to fill a complete team. But in August, he added some girls to his roster and they persevered on Tuesday.

“They’ve ended up being just a joy to work with,” Eckert said. “The girls are giving everything they’ve got. They are very inexperienced, and they haven’t done a lot of running. They’ve got a good girl to lead them in Olivia, who is a good example. She ran a phenomenal race today.”

Henryville senior Katie Spellman began her quest for a third semistate berth by placing seventh. Teammate Caitlyn Lynch finished 30th, while Hornet freshman Hannah Gilstrap was 35th. Also for Henryville, Erica Porter wound up 36th and Leslie Thomas was 41st.

“That’s one of our major accomplishments for the season,” Hornets’ coach Kyle Lewis said about the regional berth. “We always look at two things. The conference is something we always want to win, but we always look at the sectional meet. We reiterate every day how important it is to try to compete and get out and go to the regional as a team. It’s really a big deal to the girls.”

New Washington had one individual advance to regional, as freshman Rachel Seals grabbed the 15th position in the final 75 yards. The Mustangs finished seventh as a team with 169 points.



SOUTHWESTERN SECTIONAL

at Hanover College

(Top five teams and top 15 individual advance to Saturday’s Bedford North Lawrence Regional)

BOYS

Team scores — Silver Creek 41, Jennings County 67, Switzerland County 68, Austin 80, Jeffersonville 111, Scottsburg 175, Henryville 217, Charlestown 228, Shawe Memorial 243, New Washington 253, Southwestern 264.

Silver Creek — 1. Chwalek 16:52, 4. Eckert 17:18, 5. Beck 17:19, 16. Staton 18:00, 19. Alford 18:14, 58. Chester 21:34, 69. Glenn 22:11.

Jeff — 7. Coats 17:28, 21. Richardson 18:20, 29. Sutherland 18:57, 32. Kimbrell 19:13, 33. Holloway 19:22, 35. Klingsmith 19:26, 40. Feldhaus 19:46.

Henryville — 28. Brishaber 18:53, 37. Goode 19:32, 50. Webb 20:34, 52. Dietrich 20:48, 65. Schnaus 21:49, 70. Proffitt 22:24, 73. Clark 23:24.

Charlestown — 30. Balch 19:05, 43. Ty. Newcomb 19:55, 47. Werner 20:25, 61. Ta. Newcomb 21:40, 62. Hurley 21:44, 63. Pfohl 21:45, 72. Martin 22:30.

New Washington — 23. Wiggam 18:28, 45. Ramer 20:07, 57. Woods 21:16, 68. Bowman 22:06, 74. Zollman 24:07, 76. Radford 24:28.



GIRLS

Team scores — Madison 19, Jeffersonville 74, Silver Creek 82, Switzerland County 108, Henryville 144, Jennings County 145, New Washington 169, Austin 192, Scottsburg 198.

Jeff — 8. Thomas 21:51, 11. Chan 22:01, 12. Mosqueda 22:02, 21. Simcoe 23:35, 22. Inman 23:36, 32. Blackburn 24:36, 48. Delap 26:34.

Silver Creek — 2. Horvath 20:35, 14. Schrader 22:21, 16. Warren 23:11, 17. Fitchett 23:21, 34. Hisle 24:41.

Henryville — 7. Spellman 21:41, 30. Lynch 24:20, 35. Gilstrap 24:52, 36. Porter 24:54, 41. Thomas 25:37, 52. Guthrie 26:54, 57. Hodge 27:37.

New Washington — 15. Seals 22:59, 26. Walker 23:50, 37. Robison 25:03, 43. Doherty 25:52, 54. W. Leezer 27:20, 56. B. Leezer 27:36.

Charlestown — 60. Farmer 29:33, 61. Stephens 29:34, 63. Higazy 35:32.

        

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