There were not a lot of surprises at the Miami County Cross Country Championships held on Saturday at Milton Union High School.
The Tippecanoe boys’ team dominated the boys’ race with 40 points, nearly 50 points better than the team runner-up from Troy Christian. In the girls’ race, Troy ran to the easy win with 28 points, while Tippecanoe finished second with 46.
Korry Hamlin from Bethel was the boys’ individual winner with a time of 16:28.1, just two seconds ahead of his closest competitor. For the girls, Morgan Gigandet from Troy didn’t have as much competition in her race, cruising to the win in 17:59.9, nearly 45 seconds ahead of her closest competitor which happened to be her teammate Emma Shigley (18:43.7).
Also in the boys’ race, Michael Stearns took home third overall with a 16:34.1, while teammate Keenan Fraylick was fifth with a time of 17:19.8. Ben Jans placed ninth with a time of 17:28.4, and Ethan Heitkamp ran to a tenth place finish with a 17:29.4.
Also for Tipp, Ethan Sinning ran 17:37.4, Brenan Larned ran 18:00.6, Austin Rogers 18:19.2, Colin Durcan 18:29.9 and Tristan Spencer 18:37.6.
As the runner-up Troy Christian was led by Carter Ritchey with a seventh place finish (17:26.4) and Nick Pratt eighth 17:28.1. Also for the Eagles, Isaac Flora finished 18:13.0, Robert Ventura 18:15.0, Zach Davidson 18:39.4 and Nate Hunnicutt 18:46.8.
Troy finished fifth and Bethel ninth to round out the boys teams. The Trojans were led by Mike Griffith with a 17:30.9, good enough for 12th place. Also for Troy, Andy Smith ran 17:58.1, Seth Plantz 18:26.1, Carson Dehart 18:43.6, Adam Falknor 18:45.6, and Logan Huth 18:47.3.
Following the overall champion Hamlin for the Bees, their other times were from Conner Whalen 18:35.7 and Max Schell 20:15.5.
*In the girls’ race, Troy had 13 runners place in the top 50 in the county. In addition to Gigandet and Shigley, the remainder of the top runners included Emma Bryant 19:18.8, Olivia Tyre 19:20.3, Megan Myers 19:35.2, Kate Pence 19:40.7, Jenna Zimmerman 20:45.2 and Megan Studebaker 20:51.8.
Tipp finished second, and had two of the top four runners on the day. Katie Taylor was third with a time of 18:51.9, Kaili Titley fourth 19:02.0, Abbi Halsey 19:25.5, Makenzie Dietz 20:27.3, Jillian Brown 20:42.3, Laura Fink 20:43.1 and Bekah Shininger 21:11.2.
Bethel and Troy Christian didn’t field a full team, and each had three finishers in the county race. Those three for each included: Bethel- Kaitlyn Balkcom 22:45.5, Gemma Miller 25:28.2, and Emma Daughtery 26:19.7. For Troy Christian- Gracie Glasier ran 22:14.6, Rachel Plummer 22:59.9 and Sophie Pitsenbarger 32:40.3.
