Published: October 25, 2009 02:39 am      

SEMISTATE ROUNDUP: NA boys’ CC heading back to state

One area cross country team was able to advance to next Saturday’s IHSAA State Finals at Saturday’s Brown County Semistate. As for one area individual, he came up just short of going to state himself.

For the first time in program history, the New Albany boys’ team earned a second consecutive trip to state, which will be at the LaVern Gibson Course in Terre Haute. The Bulldogs finished sixth at semistate with 182 points, beating seventh-place Evansville Memorial by four points.

The top six teams and top 15 individuals qualified for state.

“A lot has to go right in order to go back to state in any sport. We’re proud of the kids,” New Albany head coach Paul Hamilton said.

Pryce Ragains was the top finisher for the Bulldogs, placing 24th. Jason Holcomb was 34th and Mathew Holcomb was 40th for the Bulldogs.

Borden junior Hunter WIlliams was two spots shy of advancing to the state finals. Williams finished 17th overall, just less than four seconds behind 15th-place finisher Brian Depasse of Terre Haute North.

Floyd Central wound up 17th and SIlver Creek was 20th on the day. Cory Portwood was the Highlanders’ top finisher, placing 42nd. Aaron Beck led the Dragons with a 68th-place effort.

Terre Haute North slipped by second-place North Harrison in the team standings. North finished with 55 points as a team, while the Cougars were one point behind in the final standings. Tyler Byrne of North Harrison was the individual champion, winning the 5-kilometer race in a time of 16:15.5.

In the girls’ meet, Floyd Central led all local teams by finishing 11th. The Highlanders’ Constance Rhodes was 48th overall while Chelsea Reidinger (68th), Hannah Keehn (81st), Brandy Fulton (88th) and Abbie Ewing (96th) completed the scoring for the Highlanders.

“I was very happy with our girls today. Connie Rhodes led a good team effort,” said Highlander coach Carl Hook. “God has truly blessed us this year and we are very thankful to have had such a good season. We made a huge jump from the last couple of years and really have things going in the right direction.”

Silver Creek wound up 17th and had the highest-placing local individual in senior runner Olivia Horvath, who was 33rd. New Albany was one spot behind the Dragons in 18th, led by freshman Phoebe Bauer in 50th.

Jeff’s Connie Chan was 39th and teammate Jessica Mosqueda was 82nd on the day.



BOYS’ SOCCER

• New Albany falls in semistate semi: Washington was finally able to crack New Albany’s vaunted defense in the semifinal of the Evansville Central Semistate on Saturday.

After five straight postseason shutouts, New Albany was shut down themselves by the Hatchets (20-1-1), falling 5-0.

It ended an improbable run for the Bulldogs (9-11-1), whose five postseason victories were more than the team recorded in 15 regular-season matches. Along the way, New Albany avenged regular-season losses to four teams and won twice in penalty-kick shootouts — once in the sectional semifinals against Floyd Central and again on Monday against Seymour in the Floyd Central Regional final.