SEAN GIGGY, Herald-Press Sports Editor
10/27/2008
The Huntington North girl's cross country team finished sixth at the New Haven semi-state on Saturday, wrapping up the sixth and final berth for next weekend's state finals in Terre Haute.
Although the Lady Vikes expected to finish a little higher at Saturday's meet, they're happy to be heading to the state meet with a chance to improve upon Saturday's race.
“We expected to do a little better, but under the circumstances, if you don't win semi-state, you definitely want to be in the top six,” said Huntington North head coach Don Cotton. “Top six means you're going and that's the main thing, so we're happy to be going to state.”
Northridge placed first with a team score of 84, Fort Wayne Northrop was second with 117, Carroll finished third with 124, DeKalb was fourth with 159 and West Noble had 160 to place fifth. The Lady Vikes finished with 188 on the day.
The individual winner was Autumn Beachy of DeKalb in 18:24.
The top 15 individuals in the semi-state race are named to the all-semi-state team. After placing three girls in the top 15 in last week's regional race, the Lady Vikes top runner was Natalie Spahr in 25th place in a time of 19:30. Although no Lady Viking placed in the top 15, the girls are proud of the way they ran together as a team.
“We did not anticipate anybody in the top 20,” Cotton said. “Looking at the times of girls coming in, it's easy to compare and Natalie was not ranked in the top 20 and she finished 25th, so we needed to get everybody packed together as we usually do and they did well in that regard.”
The second runner to cross the finish line for Huntington North was Gretchen Spahr in 39th in 19:45.
Also for the Lady Vikes, Becca Goodman placed 51st in 20:00, Molly King was 61st in 20:09, Cassie Hacker placed 74th in 20:20, Heidi Blocker was 110th in 21:20 and Olivia Eckert was 120th in 21:45.
Eckert, usually one of the top five runners for the Lady Vikes had a 101 temperature the night before the race and wasn't able to keep up with the Lady Viking pack. Goodman finished 15 seconds better than her race at the regional and Cotton thinks that was the key to the Lady Vikes' success.
“Becca was 15 seconds faster than last week,” said Cotton. “Olivia had a fever last night and didn't run nearly as well as she could have. Becca stepped up and I think she was the key to the fact that we did as well as we did today. I'm just happy we're going.”
The Lady Vikes will be making their first trip to the state finals since 2006 where they finished 18th. This time around, the ladies have their sights set higher and think they can get into the top 10 with their best race of the season.
“All along, we thought if we had a really good race [at state], we'd be in the top 10,” Cotton said. “Who knows? It's a different situation and you never know how people are going to respond. If we can keep the girls focused for another week and get one more good race out of them, they can place really high.”
The state finals are schedule to begin with the girl's race at 11 a.m. in Terre Haute on Saturday. The boy's race will begin after the conclusion of the girl's race. Admission is eight dollars per person.
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