Owls use 1-1 finish to win Bedford cross country sectional

BEDFORD - Coach Randy Fife said he knew if his first two runners finished 1-2 Tuesday in the Bedford North Lawrence boys cross country sectional that it would be hard for anybody to beat Seymour.

Nolan Fife and Steven Tanner finished 1-2 to lead the Owls to the title with 45 points. BNL was second with 64 points, Brownstown was third with 110, and Mitchell and Paoli were the other two qualifiers for Saturday‘s BNL Regional.

Crothersville finished sixth with a score of 151, and Trinity Lutheran was ninth with 224.

"It feels good to come back and win it," coach Fife said. "Our times weren't exceptionally good, but we were looking for places. Nolan and Tanner ran well. They were fourth and fifth after the first mile, but then they moved up, and they increased  their lead late in the race. It was a good day for us. We wanted to come over here and win it."

Fife's winning time was  16:29, and Tanner ran  16:51. Next for the Owls was Zach Toppe, eighth at 17:33.
Fife said, "I was happy with my time. It was faster than I ran over here earlier. We were going for places."
He said this was his fourth individual title of the season as he was first in the Seymour, Bedford, and Batesville Invitationals.

Keith Waggoner led Brownstown by placing seventh at 17:26.

Braves coach Otha Smith said, "Seventh is pretty good for him. (Jacob) Childress ran well." Childress was BC's second finisher, 16th at 18:03.

"It was humid and our times were off a little bit. Hopefully, Saturday we'll have better times," Smith said.
Crothersville's Mark Crossman led the first mile and finished third at 17 minutes.

Tigers coach Carl Bowman said, "I'm pleased with Mark. Zach (Elliott) ran much faster than he did last week. With those two running that way it made the others run faster. (Chris) Walker and (Harley) Hensley cut their times."
Bowman said he was happy that both Crossman and Elliott qualified for the regional.

Ryan Schneider,  who was Trinity's first regional qualifier after finishing in the top 15 last year, just missed advancing this time as he finished 17th at 18:05.

"The boys' competition was tough," TL coach Jay Cherry said,. "I felt like Schneider ran a good race but there were a lot of good  runners here today."

The regional will begin at 11:10 a.m. Saturday.

"We're going to have to run better Saturday," coach Fife said. "We know Silver Creek is good, and Bedford will be better. They were without their No. 3 runner (Tuesday). We need to have our times come down."

Results

Bedford Sectional
Teams: Seymour 45, Bedford 64, Brownstown 110, Mitchell 111, Paoli 140, Crothersville 151, Salem 178, Orleans 197, Trinity 224, Eastern 230, Springs Valley 271, West Washington 339.

Seymour: 1-Fife 16:29, 2-Tanner 16:51, 8-Toppe 17:33, 15-Schultz 18:01, 19-Pottschmidt 18:11, 21-McCauley 18:18, 26-Tormoehlen 18:46.

Brownstown: 7-Waggoner 17:26, 16-Childers 18:03, 23-Wingler `18:26, 30-Leffler 18:54,  34-Gallion 19:03.

Crothersville: 3-Crossman 17:00,  11-Elliott 17:43, 37-Walker 19:14, 43-Hensley 19:39,  57-Martin 20;13, 61-Oakes 20:22,  62-Prewitt 20:25.

Trinity: 17-Schneider 18:05, 40-Flinn 19:21,  54-Hoene 20:09, 55-Franke 20:10, 58-B. Muhlbach 20:13,  69-J. Muhlbach 20:L43, 76-Pottschmidt 21;47.