Columbus North’s Julia Kiesler, left, and Lily Baker, right, set the pace early in Saturday’s Brown County cross country semistate at Eagle Park.
Greg Jones | For The Republic
NASHVILLE — The plan for Columbus North going into Saturday’s Brown County Semistate was to keep the momentum going heading into next weekend’s state finals.
The top-ranked Bull Dog girls and the fourth-ranked boys did just that at Eagle Park. Both cross-country squads ran to easy victories.
“The effort was excellent,” North boys coach Andy Keffaber said. “It was a very fast start, and the guys handled that and kept their effort throughout the whole race. So as a team, 1-through-7 ran really well today. There were some question marks coming into the week from a team standpoint. Semistate is the day we really want to really be sharp to make sure were ready to go for the state finals.”
The Bull Dogs dominated the girls race, scoring 58 points to 110 for runner-up Bloomington South. Senior Julia Kiesler won the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile event) in a school- and course-record 17 minutes, 17.3 seconds.
“I was really happy with it,” Kiesler said. “I went out hard and just tried to keep that up longer and stay strong through the last few (kilometers) It felt pretty comfortable most of the way, but it definitely hurt.”
North’s Lily Baker finished second in 17:53.4.
“I would have liked to run a little bit faster, but I’m not complaining about my time,” Baker said. “It was good day, and I’m happy with it.”
Also for the Bull Dogs, Brianna Newell took seventh in 18:43.8. Ellen White was 24th (19:29.3), Sydney Morlok 37th (19:51.7), Jessica Meza 39th (19:56.3) and Julie Klaus 49th (20:09.6).
“That’s an amazing time (for Kiesler), and then just setting the tone for our team, too, she did a great job leading,” North girls coach Rick Sluder said. “Lily broke 18 again, which is just another amazing race to have two girls under 18. Bri Newell coming in with a top-10 run was really good for us, and then our 4-5-6-7 did what they were supposed to. We competed with everybody else, and Ellen White and Sydney Morlok ran really well.”
The Bull Dog boys scored 55 points to 117 for runner-up Floyd Central. Will Russell led North with a third-place finish in 15:36.9.
“I started pretty far back,” Russell said. “We had a plan coming into it as a team, and I think for the most part, we executed it, but some of us just haven’t been in a race as big as this before. But I think this was good practice going into the state next weekend with the amount of people we’ll be racing against.”
Clayton Guthrie was right behind Russell in fourth in 15:41.3.
“I was definitely going to try to stick with Aidan Lord the whole race, but I kind of told myself going in that if he was going to go out too quick, I was going to slow down a little bit,” Guthrie said. “That kind of hurt me in the end, but it was still an OK race, a good experience, a good lesson learned.”
Also for the Bull Dogs, Mateo Mendez finished ninth in 15:54.9. Neal White was 17th (16:03.7), Draven Martinez 30th (16:39.3), Adler Larson 33rd (16:41.7) and Kellen Hottell 39th (16:48.1).
Meanwhile, host Brown County had a pair of individuals advance to Saturday’s state finals with 10th-place finishes. Hadley Gradolf will make her fourth state appearance after running 18:50.7.
“It feels really great making it out every year,” Gradolf said. “I wanted to run a little bit faster than I did, but I’m really happy with the place I got.”
The Eagles’ Chase Austin will make his second consecutive trip to state after running 15:55.0.
“I was really excited,” Austin said. “I hadn’t had my best races the last two weeks. So I was really hoping for a good day out here today, and it all came together the right way.”
Columbus East finished 17th in the girls team standings. The top six make the state finals.
Carly Otte finished 61st in 20:26.3 to lead the Olympians. Victoria Cuhadar took 94th (21:03.2), while Chloe Krueger was 103rd (21:14.8), Madison Swartzentruber 134th (22:13.4), Amelia Fay 156th (23:08.5), Hayden Carothers 160th (23:20.2) and Riley Carothers 167th (23:53.5).
“We’re happy with our results, especially with our improvement from our seeding,” East girls coach Jesse Shoaf said. “We had a lot of good times today, and it was just a good race to end the season with.”
Jennings County’s Avery Willhite, running as an individual, finished 84th in 20:51.4.
Brown County’s boys finished 18th with 405 points, and Jennings County was 19th with 423 points.
Following Austin for the Eagles were Case Smith in 112th (17:56.2), Charlie Webb 118th (18:05.3), Kai Koester 128th (18:13.4), Rafe Silbaugh 158th (18:43.4) and Clayton Austin 169th (19:29.0).
Jennings was led by a 59th-place finish from Eli Wahlman in 17:06.9. Noah McFall was 116th (18:00.3), Zachary Wahlman 120th (18:06.2), Dawson Leak 124th (18:09.7), Elijah Hatton 127th (18:12.6), Kraedyn Young 152nd (18:35.4) and Lain Ernstes 171st (19:44.2).
Hauser’s Colin Kistler, running as an individual, finished 148th in 18:32.5.
