For The Tribune

PEKIN

Brownstown Central cross-country coaches Maria Conklin and Dan Botkin says their runners are headed in the right direction heading into Saturday’s Brown County Sectional.

The Brownstown girls scored 69 points to finish in third place, one point behind Charlestown, this past Saturday in the Mid-Southern Conference meet at Eastern High School.

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Corydon Central, sparked by individual winner Marcie Stewart (20-minutes, 22-seconds), won the title with 34 points.

The Brownstown boys scored 161 points to place sixth, and Botkin said that was an improvement by two places over a year ago.

Austin, led by individual winner Ethan Fugate (26:48), easily won the team title with 38 points. Austin had four runners in the top 10.

Kaelyn Johnson led the Brownstown Central girls by finishing sixth in 21:46. Next for BC was Destiny Satterthwaite, 10th at 22:29, one second and one place ahead of teammate Claire Poulton. They were All-MSC first team.

Grace Garland placed 20th at 23:21, and Shauna Drake was 22nd at 23:27, and both were All-MSC honorable mention for the Braves.

Rounding out the Braves varsity was Madison Klinge, 29th at 23:57, and Emma Winks, 32nd at 24:09.

“We ran really well overall,” Conklin said. “They all dropped time from the last time they were at Eastern (Sept. 12), so I’m definitely pleased with the effort today. They wanted to win, but I’ll take the third place.

“This whole season we’ve been trying to beat Corydon, and trying to beat Charlestown and we’ve kind of been back-and-forth with Charlestown. The goal was to get all the top seven in the top 23, but it was a fast race today.”

Corydon edged Eastern for second, 75-70, with Silver Creek fourth with 96 points and North Harrison was fifth with 142 in the boys’ race.

Jeremy Pitts led Brownstown by placing 17th in 18:08, and Ethan Carroll was 20th at 18:30. Both made all-conference honorable mention.

Next for the Braves was Trey Hackman, 28th at 19:12, Mason Kellogg, 44th at 20:236, Sean Tharp, 52nd at 21:20, and Andrew Wheeles, 54th at 21:41.

“My top three runners are trying to get in the 17-minute club,” Botkin said. “One of them (Pitts at Brown County) has already made it, and the other two are trying to peak next week to get in that 17 club.

“Everybody’s time came down from when we ran over here two weeks ago so I’m satisfied with that. We wanted to improve over last year.”

Conklin and Botkin said their teams are looking forward to the sectional. The Brownstown teams ran at the Brown County Invitational on Sept. 9.

“We’re about where we want to be, Conklin said. “We’ve got some tough competition at sectional but I think if we keep running like we’re doing we should be able to get out of sectional, and have a good spot at making it to semi-state out of regional. If we keep working hard we’ll be all right.

“Brown County is a fast course so hopefully their times will keep dropping. We’ve seen the course and most of them ran well there. We’re looking forward to it.”

The top finishers in the sectional will advance to the Brown County Regional on Oct. 14.