NEW MARKET — Southmont junior Faith Allen defended her Montgomery County cross country title on Thursday night, as fellow Mountie teammate Mason Cass won the boys’ race and Crawfordsville continued long winning streaks on the team side in both boys and girls.
Allen cruised to a win in the girls’ race with a time of 20:25, while sophomore Mason Cass edged North Montgomery senior Elijah McCartney with a time of 17:32 to win the boys’ race.
“There’s something about this meet that for some reason he’s very driven and just goes all out,” Southmont coach Shelley Allen said. “He PRd (personal record) by about 15 seconds tonight and I couldn’t be more proud of both of them.”
After Allen and Cass though it was all Athenians.
In the girls’ race, Olivia Biddle finished second in 24:20, Karla Fernandez fourth in 24:37, Shelby Greene fifth in 24:47, Sophia Melevage sixth in 24:48, Elyse Widmer was seventh in 24:52 and Skylah Strawser eighth in 25:17. Crawfordsville cruised to its sixth-straight county title with 20 points, while Southmont was second at 42 and North Montgomery incomplete.
“It’s great and I think it also brings some excitement to the sport and gets kids involved,” Crawfordsville coach Megan Craig said. “The middle school is out here tonight and it’s an opportunity for us to support them as well. So keeping that momentum with the younger kids is important.”
On the boys’ side, Crawfordsville sophomore Ryan Miller was third in 18:21, while freshman Max Brumett was sixth in 19:22 and freshman Hutton Haas seventh in 19:24. Tyson Fuller was ninth in 19:37, Roman Contreras 10th in 19:41, Ian Hensley was 11th in 19:48, and Arthur Ruano 12th in 19:54. Crawfordsville won with 35 points, North Montgomery was second at 44 and Southmont third with 51.
“Regardless I think of what individually comes out of this, this is the type of win that you realize, even if you don’t take home an individual win, as a team you know you worked hard to win county and that’s important for them to understand,” Craig said. “As frustrating as we can be about a wrong turn or a mishap on the course, when you rely on your teammates like this and can come home with a win, you can celebrate and that’s the important part.”
McCartney placed second for the Chargers in the boys’ race in 17:46, while Tim Lueking was fifth in 19:18, Paul Lueking eighth in 19:37, Nolan Yarger 14th in 21:19 and Jack Rogers 15th in 21:48. Wil Campbell placed 21st in 23:49 and Conner Hankins 25th in 30:19.
“They did everything we could have wanted them to do,” North Montgomery coach Cassie Hicks said. “They went out and ran hard, they ran the best that they could. We worked on visualization this week. Visualizing a routine, having a positive winners mindset when we go to the starting line and they did exactly that and you could see the toughness and fight in them and I’m very proud of them.”
On the girls’ side, Claire Bonwell placed third in 24:20, Payton Kunz was 17th in 30:31 and Nichole Hoffman 19th in 33:21.
For Southmont, Heaven Smith placed ninth in 25:40, Rachel Rhoads 11th in 26:09, Tomo Greiner 13th in 28:17, Kylee Reeves 16th in 30:18 and Tiffany Dittmer 18th in 31:20. On the boys’ side Aaron Evans placed fourth in 18:47, Hunter Alesi 13th in 20:39, Brett Keller was 17th in 22:12, and Clay Allen 19th in 22:34.
