Columbus North’s Clayton Guthrie, left, and Will Russell lead the Brown County boys cross-country sectional Saturday, Oct. 8, 2022, at Eagle Park in Nashville, Ind.
The Republic file photo
When Clayton Guthrie and Will Russell lead the Columbus North boys cross-country team into the state finals on Saturday, they’ll be running with a little more peace of mind.
The senior standouts both committed to Division I college programs in the past week. Russell committed last week to run cross-country and track at Xavier, and Guthrie committed on Monday to run at Indiana University.
“It’s a big weight lifted off my shoulders because now, I don’t have to worry about e-mailing any more coaches,” Russell said. “I can just focus strictly on running and school.”
Guthrie and Russell have been front-runners all season, finishing 1-2 in the Conference Indiana and sectional meets. Russell won the regional when Guthrie was resting a sore calf, then Russell and Guthrie finished third and fourth in Saturday’s Brown County Semistate.
Russell visited Xavier for the first time about a year ago.
“We’ve had some family friends go to Xavier, and I’ve always heard positive things about it,” Russell said. “So last year, around this time, we went to the school just to check it out, not athletics, just the academics part, and once I got on campus, I enjoyed it. Everything seemed super nice. The academics were top notch, and then whenever I got to get a taste of what the athletic side of it was, everything was just super nice. They have a pretty young team, and I wanted to be a part of growing with the team and just building up the program with them. That’s something that interested me.”
Russell, who plans to major in Finance, also looked at looked at IU, Georgia, Kentucky and Virginia Tech. He visited Kentucky for running and Indiana for academics last month.
“Xavier was just my favorite out of all of them,” Russell said. “I really liked the guys on the team, and the coaching staff was super nice. Everyone that I met was extremely nice, as well.”
Guthrie took his official visit to IU right after the sectional meet and stayed through that Monday.
“Overall, I think it’s just going to be a really good fit for me,” Guthrie said. “I really like the coaching. I think the coaches know what they want and know what they’re doing, and I think that they’re going to help me become the best runner I can be. Also, the school is great, and I’m studying business, so it kind of works out in my favor with Kelley. The campus is beautiful, too, so it kind of just has everything I want.”
Guthrie also took an unofficial visit to Purdue and made an official visit to Butler on Monday.
“There were some other schools that I was talking to, but none that I was really super interested in besides those three.”
Guthrie made his decision shortly after returning from Butler, where his mother Jennifer is a professor.
“I’ve honestly been a bigger Butler fan because my mom works there, and I’ve been up there a lot more,” Clayton said. “But I’ve always liked IU. I’ve always thought it’s a really cool place, so it’s cool to be going there now.”
