Warsaw Teams 2nd In XC InviteSecond place was a good first start for the Warsaw girls cross country team Tuesday.
The Lady Tigers finished second out of 10 teams in its own invitational with a team score of 70, while the boys team placed second out of 12 teams with 89 points.
Mishawaka won the girls race with a score of 45, while Homestead (23) won the boys race.
“It’s a good starting point, and we know what we need to work on,” said Warsaw girls coach Jason Fleming. “Hopefully moving on we’ll be where we want to be.”
Wini Barnett led Warsaw by finishing ninth in 19:01.
The Lady Tigers had seven runners in the top 20, and won the tiebreaker over Bishop Luers, which also scored 70.
Sam Lechlitner led Warsaw’s boys team with a time of 17:36.5.
Warsaw boys coach Jim Mills said he had low expectations given his team’s inexperience.
Matters weren’t helped when senior Zeb Hernandez, who was all-state as a sophomore before being sidelined by a suspension as a junior, was slowed up considerably by a hard fall in the woods.
Hernandez finished the race, and Mills said his injury status was to be determined.
Still, Mills was complimentary of his team.
“Given these guys are hard workers, the potential’s there,” he said. “We get Zeb back to close to where he was, we could be pretty good.”
Manchester’s girls team finished fourth (92 points), while the boys team placed seventh (186).
Jaelyn Webb led the Lady Squires with a 12th-place finish in 19:22.7, while Carter Bedke led all Manchester boys by placing 24th in 18:20.1.
Manchester coach Jody Sarber was impressed with the effort from both teams, but especially the girls.
“Our girls ran really well,” he said. “Because of the inexperience, a couple of them just packed up. We’re not gonna have a really strong front-runner, but if our pack runs as well as they did today all season, we’ll be very happy.”
Tippecanoe Valley placed ninth in the girls race (256) and 10th amongst boys teams (279).
Valley coach Mike Inglehearn was pleased with the showing by both teams.
“Other than the fact that (the girls) ran a little short today on accident, they had a good run,” he said.
Inglehearn was referring to several hundred meters being shaved off the course in the girls race when the frontrunners mistakenly missed a loop in the path.
The rest of the girls followed suit for an even race.
Whitko’s girls team placed 10th (290), while its boys team finished 12th (339).
Whitko coach Tara Jackson commended her young runners with reaching their goal of finishing the race, and noted that they are in it for the long haul.
“We are gonna be looking toward the future,” she said.
Lakeland Christian had two boys compete individually, and coach Adam Schaaf said they achieved personal-bests.
David Plastow was 88th in 20:43.1, while Sam Turner was 150th in 22:25.8.
“If they had gone out maybe just 10 seconds slower, they could have held that pace a little bit better and cut their times down quite a bit,” he said. “But I think that’s just gonna come with time.”
TIGER INVITATIONAL
(Girls)
Team Scores – 1. Mishawaka, 45; 2. Warsaw, 70; 3. Bishop Luers, 70; 4. Manchester, 92; 5. Columbia City, 124; 6. NorthWood, 170; 7. Fairfield, 185; 8. Northfield, 217; 9. Tippecanoe Valley, 256; 10. Whitko, 290.
