The Bloomington South boys cross country team knows the history its chasing.
It’s been just over 20 years (2000-03) since the Panthers went two years in a row without running at the state meet. They’re hard on themselves, head coach Larry Williams noted. The path back isn’t supposed to be easy, but so far, they’re on the right one.
The competition they ran against nearly each week revealed the standard they needed to meet to be in the hunt for a top-five spot at the Evansville Regional this Saturday, Oct. 25. But this group, rebuilt after big senior loses, has never made the journey to state ― outside sophomore Chase Norris, last year’s lone qualifier for the Panthers.
“You never discredit experience,” Williams said after last week’s run at the Bedford North Lawrence Sectional. “They know next week is our state meet, to get though there.
“How do they handle it? That’s why we go to the all the big meets we go to. It’s why we run against the best in the state. Sometimes, we look bad, but they begin to understand what we need to do to, relative to those people.”
Who are those people? No. 1 Columbus North (maybe one of the top five teams Williams has seen in his over 40 years of coaching), No. 3 Bloomington North and Floyd Central are ahead of the pack. That leaves two spots. But the landscape has changed.
“Now, it’s Silver Creek, Barr-Reeve and ourselves,” Williams said. “Castle has lost its No. 3 runner, Reitz lost their Nos. 2 and 5 runners. Princeton might sneak in there. Memorial?”
And the door has opened for South because of its depth. The Panthers lost Luke Reinhart to a stress fracture, but behind Norris and senior Abe Brown, the next five all have a chance to be the 3-4-5 guys.
“Some others might not have (our depth),” Williams said. “But all we can do is worry about ourselves, try to key off each other and what we’re doing. We did a better job of that today.”
Williams liked the performance at Bedford when it came to the back end of his lineup closing the gap with Norris and Brown. Garrett Pitkin, Daniel Damico, Matthew Zinkan, Oliver Moore and Jack Taylor all finished within 30 seconds of each other and Pitkin just 20 seconds behind Brown.
“Chase had a head thing going on, so we just had him sit back with Abe and try to pull the pack along,” Williams said. “Abe’s done a really good job lately for us. We need to move our three through seven guys closer to him and today, they were closer to him.
“As a coach, I was watching what they were doing, and they did a much better job of keeping him in sight. I’m not jumping up and down yet, but I feel encouraged going into (regionals). Whatever boys we have, they don’t have to do anything special. We just have to go in there and have it on that day and believe in that.”
Eastern Greene will be among the 25 teams competing as well. Edgewood will have three individuals, led by Monte Kester. Look for North’s Jacob Mitchell and Caelan D’Onofrio to be among the leaders with Columbus North’s powerful lead pack.
Edgewood, North girls on the bubble
Bloomington North, Edgewood and Jasper are considered the 4-5-6 teams coming in. The Mustangs just missed out on state last year and have an experienced group that had a strong pack showing last week, taking another crack at it, while the Cougars have some new faces in their first regional race.
Bloomington South is the strong favorite and has the three top ranked runners coming in with Jasmine and Aurelia Martoglio and Lexi Kollbaum, with Edgewood’s Hannah Crain next, Martinsville’s Laura Barco fifth and South’s Mary Asplund a top-10 possibility.
Eastern Greene is one of the smaller schools in the field but comes in ranked 12th. Senior Esther Crane will be looking for a return trip to state and freshman sister Juniper Crane is trying to advance in her debut season. Both are ranked in the top 25 individuals.
Lighthouse Christian’s Brie Weeks will be the first Lion to run at regional.
What to know for Evansville cross country regional
RACE TIME: Boys will go at 11:30 a.m. EST, while girls run at 12:15 p.m.
ADVANCEMENT: Top 5 teams and top 15 individuals not on those teams head to the state finals.
TOP BOYS TEAMS (PER INCCSTATS.COM): 1. Columbus North; 2. Bloomington North; 3. Floyd Central; 4. Castle; 5. Evansville Reitz; 6. Barr-Reeve; 7. Silver Creek; 8. Bloomington South; 9. Princeton; 10. Evansville Memorial; 11. Jasper; 12. Seymour.
TOP GIRLS TEAMS (PER INCCSTATS.COM): 1. Bloomington South; 2. Floyd Central; 3. Columbus North; 4. Bloomington North; 5. Edgewood; 6. Jasper; 7. Corydon Central; 8. Seymour; 9. Jennings County; 10. Evansville Mater Dei; 11. Silver Creek; 12. Eastern Greene.
Owen Valley at Brownsburg
Owen Valley will go up against some of the state’s best with the top five boys and girls teams also considered top 12 in the state with the No. 1 Carmel girls and No. 3 Carmel boys leading the way.
The OV girls qualified as a team, led by Payton Lukowski (ranked 89th in the regional), Isabelle Sylvester and Alli Anderson, while the lone Patriot in the boys race will be Liam Hogan.
Boys will run at 10:30 a.m. and girls at 11:15.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington South boys cross country has a plan to get back to state
Reporting by Jim Gordillo, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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