Owl to run at state: Junior Johnson gets fifth at semistate

NASHVILLE

The Seymour boys and girls cross-country teams competed in Saturday’s Brown County Semistate. But unfortunately, their seasons came to an end, as the girls placed 10th, and the boys placed 14th.

Seymour junior Zoey Johnson, however, will continue her season one more week. She placed fifth in the girls race with a time of 18:26.

Columbus North placed three runners in the top six and ran away from the field to win the girls meet with 47 points. Terre Haute North was second, while Bloomington South, Terre Haute North, Evansville Reitz Memorial and Bloomington North rounded out the top six teams advancing to the state meet.

At the start of the race, Columbus North’s Mackenzie Caldwell jumped out to an early lead and never looked back, winning in 18:06. Johnson had her sights on the other girls in front of her and stayed focused on her race.

“I looked at my rankings on Indiana Runner and saw that one of the Terre Haute North girls was going to be in front of me, and I was just looking for her,” Johnson said.

Madison Hays was 46th in 20:15, Alicia Pollert was 82nd in 21:15, Mariah Lewis was 95th in 21:32 and Alexis Beed rounded out the Owls’ scoring by placing 112th in 22:13.

“I am happy to go to state, but of course, I am disappointed we are not going as a team,” Johnson said. “We all came in here and had positive attitudes, and this is the first time we really talked about going to state as a team. We were all really excited, and we all promised each other that we would hold our own, but you have to stay positive about everything.”

Coach Spencer Sunbury said he wasn’t too disappointed.

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