NASHVILLE — Going into Saturday, Columbus North’s goal was to beat Bloomington South and Bloomington North for the first time this season and win the Brown County Semistate boys cross-country title.
The 13th-ranked Bull Dogs didn’t beat both schools, but they did beat the No. 8 Cougars for the first time this season and came as close as they have to the No. 4 Panthers. Bloomington South won with 81 points to 97 for Columbus North and 126 for Bloomington North.
“I am pretty happy,” Columbus North coach Danny Fisher said. “You’re always picking apart a race and look at things we can do better, and there’s some things that we can do better. But to be 16 points behind Bloomington South on a good day, but not a great day, I’ll take that.”
Floyd Central (164), Jennings County (179) and Tell City (208) claimed the fourth-through-sixth qualifying spots to Saturday’s state finals in Terre Haute.
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John Sluys led the Bull Dogs with a ninth-place finish in 16 minutes, 9.3 seconds for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles). Sam Horak took 12th in 16:15.0, while Matthew Newell was 27th (16:35.9), Rishi Poludasu 32nd (16:41.0), Collin Pruitt 49th (17:00.8), Evan Carr 62nd (17:10.5) and Reese Kilbarger-Stumpff 73rd (17:15.7).
“I got backed up a little bit in the first mile or so, but then I was able to catch up a lot during the second and third miles,” Sluys said. “We did a lot of catching up during the race, and I think it worked out for us.”
Carter Leak finished 15th in 16:22, and Alex Hendrix was 24th in 16:30.2 to lead Jennings.
“We didn’t run good at all,” Leak said. “I think it’s good that we got to state, though. It’s going to be a fun time. We’re young, and it’s going to be a good experience.”
Also for the Panthers, Lane Elsner finished 42nd in 16:57.3. Gavin Hendrix was 66th (17:11.1), while Jason Gasper was 89th (17:31.5), Logan McIntosh 122nd (17:55.5) and AJ Siener 147th (18:16.1).
“We’re not impressed with how we’ve run,” Jennings coach Bryant Layman said. “We feel like these last two weeks, we’ve not run well. But the beauty about this tournament is just surviving and advancing and getting to the next week. I said it last week, and I’ll say it again — ‘The teams have to do it again next week. We know we can.’ It’s not the performance we wanted, but we’re in the state finals.”
Brown County had two individuals competing. Marino Dolph finished 38th in 16:47.8, and Jackson McPheeters was 97th in 17:38.8.
Trinity Lutheran’s AJ Goecker finished 61st in 17:09.7. Columbus East’s Garrett McGaha was 148th in 18:17.2.
