NASHVILLE — Columbus North’s girls didn’t have one of their better days on Saturday, but it was still good enough to earn them a ticket to the Girls Cross Country State Finals Saturday in Terre Haute.
The 19th-ranked Bull Dogs finished fifth in the Brown County Semistate. The top six qualified for state.
“We’re going to be a little disappointed about this,” North coach Rick Sluder said. “This was something we’ve worked harder for, and I think we let a lot of external things bother us this week and kind of take our focus away, and it shows. It’s those little things we probably didn’t take care of that cost us quite a bit.”
No. 12 Bloomington North edged No. 16 Floyd Central 94-96 for the title. Evansville Memorial finished third with 122, followed by No. 21 Bloomington South (137), the Bull Dogs (140) and Edgewood (166).
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Olivia Morlok led Columbus North with a sixth-place finish in 18 minutes, 57.4 seconds for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles). Aric Tong took 28th in 19:43.5, while Ella Anderson was 31st (19:50.1), Sydney Geckler 50th (20:13.4), Emma Smith 51st (20:14.4), Abigail Jacobi 71st (20:49.2) and Emma Lawson 109th (21:38.6).
“Olivia Morlok ran awesome,” Sluder said. “She ran great up front, and Ella Anderson really came through for us there as our No. 3 girl. We ran average, but we needed that stellar performance, and we just didn’t quite do it all the way up and down the line. But anytime you can move on, it’s obviously special, and taking a team over to state was our first goal, so we’ll regroup and we’ll be better next week.”
Jennings County finished 11th with 243 points. Columbus East came in 15th with 399.
Emma Morrison led the Panthers with a 19th-place finish in 19:23.2, falling one spot short of qualifying for state as an individual. Ashley Heindel and Patricia Henney took 57th and 58th in 20:29.1 and 20:31.0, while Kaylee Ebinger was 63rd (20:33.2), Heather Sea 113th (21:45.2), Elizabeth Wahlman 150th (22:36.5) and Rilee Hicks 158th (23:01.5).
“My 2 through 4 runners all ran their personal best times of the season, so I can’t really complain,” Jennings coach Leah McLeod said. “I had girls running 20:30s, and I hoped that would have been a game changer, but our fifth runner just wasn’t quite where we needed her to be. But she’s new. She’s never run cross-country before, so we just go back and try to get more experience with the years to come.”
Olivia Linnemann finished 42nd in 20:05.2 to lead the Olympians. Amanda Pottorff took 95th in 21:08.9, while Olivia Shoaf was 128th (22:02.7), Elizabeth Stevens 135th (22:12.5), Jordan Spurgeon 143rd (22:24.5), Katie Hagan 148th (22:33.2) and Kaylin DeHart 153rd (22:48.3).
“I was pleased with how we ran today,” East coach Jesse Shoaf said. “We have a really young team, so it was good to see them progress all season long. Olivia had a good race today, and I was really pleased with Amanda Pottorff’s effort today. It was just a good effort for all the girls, and now, we’re building for next year.”
Brown County had one indivdiual competing. Emelia Koester finished 62nd in 20:32.5.
