Columbus North’s Julia Kiesler (123), Brianna Newell (131) and Lily Baker (116) lead the girls race during Saturday’s Conference Indiana meet at Ceraland in Columbus.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
A deep and talented senior class of girls and boys runners already had pushed Columbus North to three consecutive Conference Indiana cross-country titles, so a fourth seemed like just a formality.
But the Bull Dogs not only won Saturday’s meets at Ceraland, they did it in dominating fashion.
Led by a 1-2 finish from Julia Kiesler and Lily Baker, the top-ranked Columbus North girls put seven runners in the top nine to score 20 points to 55 for No. 17 Bloomington South and 80 for Bloomington North. Led by a 1-2 finish from Clayton Guthrie and Will Russell, the second-ranked Bull Dog boys scored 26 points to 56 for No. 10 Bloomington South and 61 for No. 12 Bloomington North.
“It was a very good day,” Columbus North boys coach Andy Keffaber said. “This is an excellent conference. Both Bloomington schools are top teams in the state, so we knew we needed to run well today to be competitive on that team score for sure. One of the markers we like to see is if we can finish strong on the last K, and that was key because we really moved up in the final 1,000 meters. “
The top seven girls runners for the Bull Dogs were seniors.
“This group of seniors now have four straight conference titles, and every year, it’s gotten better,” Columbus North girls coach Rick Sluder. “It’s really fun to watch them work hard, and to have seven girls as seniors leading this team, that just doesn’t happen very often, so I’m really impressed with our senior leadership and what they’ve done this year.”
Kiesler ran 17 minutes, 28.3 seconds for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles), tying the school record she set in last week’s Eagle Classic at Brown County.
“I didn’t feel really great today,” Kiesler said. “My stomach was bothering me a bit. But I was happy with the race, and Lily had an amazing race. I think our team is really strong, and we’re still working on getting everybody healthy.”
Baker finished in 17:39.1, a personal-best by 10 seconds.
“I’m really happy with how I ran,” Baker said. “I went out with Julia, Bri and (Bloomington South’s) Lily Myers and just stuck in that group. We pulled ahead, and I just tried to keep my eyes on Julia. Everyone ran great, and everyone seems happy and proud of themselves, so I’m pretty happy with the overall team performance.”
Brianna Newell finished fourth in 19:02.1 for the Bull Dogs. Julie Klaus took sixth in 19:17.1, while Ellen White was seventh 19:22.1, Sydney Morlok eighth (19:27.3), Jessica Meza ninth (19:31.0) and Ainsley Sherlock 11th (19:46.3).
“(Kiesler and Baker) may be the top two girls on any team in the state,” Sluder said. “Then, Bri ran really tough because she was separated, so she ran really well by herself. Then, our pack of seniors that came in all ran fantastic as seniors to finish out their conference career, and then Ainsley Sherlock, our freshman, came through and slid in there and broke 20 minutes and got All-Conference, so that was fantastic. I couldn’t be more proud of our girls today.”
The top 12 make the All-Conference team.
“Eight of 12 spots is amazing,” Sluder said. “We were really just focused on competing. Girl-to-girl, up and down the lineup, we did a fantastic job.”
The Bull Dog boys also put three of its senior runners in the top four. Guthrie won in 15:21.5.
“We came into the season with uncertainty with what was going to happen, but now, we’re like, ‘We have a really solid team.’” Guthrie said. “We’ve been running really good times, getting really good places, so I think we are on track for a really good state meet.”
Guthrie bettered the personal-best he set a week earlier by 6 seconds.
“We wanted to kind of even-split it, so we wanted to open up a little bit slower than we did at Brown County,” Guthrie said. “I pretty evenly-split it like I wanted to, so I think it went pretty close to how I planned it.”
Russell was clocked in 15:32.4. Mateo Mendez finished fourth in 15:34.1, and Neal White and Kellen Hottell were ninth and 10th in 16:06.1 and 16:08.6.
“With a 1-2-4 finish, we can’t really complain, but our 4-5 guys have really been stepping up lately,” Russell said. “Kellen Hottell and Neal White are going to be big people in championship season. Overall, I think we had a really solid day as a team.”
The Bull Dogs’ sixth and seventh runners were Draven Martinez and Adam Reckers, who finished 15th and 16th in 16:38.8 and 16:40.0.
“We had a lot of PRs,” Keffaber said. “Guys at the front end of our team, as well as guys on the back end were having PRs across the board, and that’s tough to do, especially after Clayton had a PR the previous week. To come back and do it the next week, that’s kind of rare that you can have that fast of a time two weeks in a row. Not just Clayton, but everybody was ready to go.”
