Columbus North captured the Conference Indiana boys cross-country title Saturday at Ceraland. Pictured, from left, are Rohan Norris, Denton Sluder, Logan Vanzant, Jace Works, Joseph Day, Sam Steinmetz and Justin Reckers.
Ted Schultz | The Republic
The Columbus North boys beat eventual state champion Bloomington North in last year’s Rick Weinheimer Classic, only to see the Cougars turn the tables against the Bull Dogs in the Conference Indiana meet on the same Ceraland cross-country course.
So when Columbus North hosted the conference meet again Saturday after having beaten Bloomington North in the Weinheimer Classic two weeks earlier, the Bull Dogs had a little bit of a point to prove.
No. 1-ranked Columbus North put six runners in the top 10 and eight in the top 14 to outscore the No. 4 Cougars 27-35 and reclaim the title.
“We wanted to come over here and defend our home turf again today, so it was nice winning,” senior Jace Works said. “We wanted to send them home knowing who the best team in the state is right now.”
Works finished second in the 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) race in 15 minutes, 1.77 seconds, less than a second behind Bloomington North’s Jacob Mitchell. Fellow senior Denton Sluder was right behind in fourth in 15:03.66.
“I feel like for us, it was a big deal to finally take back the conference title,” Denton Sluder said. “Last year, there was some sickness and injury and people coming back. Now, we’re all firing on all cylinders, so this is a really good step in the right direction.”
The top four were separated by less than three seconds.
“Me and Denton hung around them for as long as we could, and we were right with them until the very end, and the rest of the team held up their end of the deal,” Works said. “I think all around, we had a good team performance today.”
Joseph Day and Justin Reckers finished sixth and seventh in 15:28.61 and 15:31.38. Sam Steinmetz and Rohan Norris took ninth and 10th in 1549.66 and 15:50.85. Logan Vanzant and Graham Pumphrey were 13th and 14th in 16:01.14 and 16:03.77.
“Our 1-2 are just about as good as anybody’s 1-2 in the state, and we’ve been building on 3-4-5-6-7 to kind of finish that out, and we did today,” North coach Rick Sluder said. “We closed the door on them in the back end, which is exactly what we had to do, so I’m really excited with that. We ran outstanding today 1-through-36.
“That was definitely one of our goals as a team, was to win the conference title,” he added. “It had been a couple years since we had won it. Bloomington North is a really good team, and that was definitely one of our goals coming into the season.”
Bloomington South finished third in the boys meet with 92 points, followed by Terre Haute South (103), Terre Haute North (150) and Southport (166). The top 12 boys and girls individuals earned All-Conference honors.
Pictured in blue are Columbus North’s girls All-Conference Indiana runners from Saturday at Ceraland: Tristan Works, sixth from right; Kodi Smith, fourth from right; Emma Lowther, third from right; and Adira Sluder, second from right.
Ted Schultz | The Republic
Meanwhile, the No. 3 Bloomington South girls claimed the top four spots in the race and ran away with the team title, scoring 22 points to 53 for runner-up No. 18 Columbus North. No. 22 Bloomington North was third with 75, followed by Terre Haute South (125), Southport (132) and Terre Haute North (146).
Tristan Works led the Bull Dogs with a seventh-place finish in 19:09.58. Kodi Smith took ninth in 19:32.72, while Emma Lowther was 10th (19:41.99), Adira Sluder 11th (19:42.95), Maria Gaggiano Camargo 16th (20:11.41), Kylie Brinksneader 18th (20:26.67), Rendy Zhong 21st (20:39.87) and Wendy Zhong 21st (20:39.87).
“We didn’t great start to the meet,” Rick Sluder said. “We were kind of back a little bit in the first K, and they responded really well and ran a really strong second half of that race, and we ended up in second, where we should have been and put a little bit of distance between us and Bloomington North. I thought our girls ran well. We’re still working and still getting better, but they looked good today.”
