Headed to semistate

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NASHVILLE

The regional is sometimes a trap meet in cross-country’s four-week postseason.

At the sectional, runners are excited to begin the postseason. At the semistate, teams are excited about the possibility of qualifying for the state finals.

But even though the Seymour girls did not run as well as they did in the sectional, they still easily advanced to Saturday’s Brown County Semistate with a second-place finish in the Brown County Regional. Sixth-ranked Columbus North won with 19 points to 44 for the Owls and 128 for third-place Brownstown Central.

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“It was a little letdown from last week,” Seymour girls coach Spencer Sunbury said. “I typically expect this when it comes to regional — a little dropoff from sectional. The times were a little slower today, but I saw some good effort out there, especially from my 5 and 6 runners moving up a little bit, which was good to see.”

Ashton Chase led the Owls with a third-place finish in 18 minutes, 48.18 seconds for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles). Makenna Sunbury took seventh, while Claire Loebker was ninth (20:11.22), Abby Voss 13th (20:23.87), Grace Rennekamp 19th (21:13.27), Oriana Morales 23rd (21:26.41) and Brett Kleber 64th (23:40.48).

“We’re just keeping positive and not putting too much emphasis on today’s race and just looking ahead to semistate,” Spencer Sunbury said. “They’re not completely happy with their runs today, so hopefully, that little bitterness will be in their mouths for the week, and we’ll be ready for semistate.”

Brownstown was led by a 15th place finish from Kaelyn Johnson in 20:41.99. Destiny Satterthwaite took 25th in 21:31.96, while Kylee Wischmeier was 34th (23:13.78), Emma Winks 35th (22:15.06), Shauna Drake 36th (22:15.90), Grace Garland 42nd (22:31.50) and Alexis Koch 43rd (22:32.21).

“This is my first semistate team, so I’m real excited that these girls can advance,” Brownstown Central girls coach Maria Conklin said. “Going in, we were aiming for fourth or fifth, so we ran better than what I thought we might.”

Crothersville’s Breanna Barger qualified for semistate as an individual with a 10th-place finish in 20:14.17.

Meanwhile, the Seymour boys will be making another trip to semistate. The Owls scored 122 points to finish fourth behind No. 9 Columbus North (35), Silver Creek (81) and Jennings County (84).

“It was a good, competitive field, and we figured we’d be anywhere from third to sixth,” Seymour boys coach Randy Fife said. “Realistically, I thought fourth would be where we would finish, and we did that. We ran well.”

Jacob Voss led the Owls with a 10th-place finish in 16:46.18. Alex Lovins took 21st in 16:53.82, while Hunter Bauserman was 26th (17:04.51), Cooper Morrow 34th (17:25.39), Barry Huff 53rd (17:59.66), Trent Hohenstreiter 54th (18:01.23) and Luke Plummer 58th (18:17.18).

“Jacob ran another good race for us,” Fife said. “Alex Lovins was sub-17 for the first time in his career. Hunter Bauserman was 17:04, so we had three nice runners up front there, and then we we’re getting some good support from the rest of the team with 4, 5, 6 and 7. We’re one of the deeper teams here.”

Trinity Lutheran’s lone runner, A.J. Goecker qualified as an individual with a 20th-place finish in 16:53.34. Brownstown Central’s Cameron Lee did not qualify after taking 72nd in 18:52.55.

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