Greenfield-Central’s Carter Crouch crosses the finish line in first place at the Mt. Vernon Sectional.
The Daily Reporter File Photo
HANCOCK COUNTY — Four full teams and a number of individuals will have the same goal heading into Saturday’s Shelbyville Cross Country Regional — they want to get to the state finals.
With a change in the IHSAA format, which eliminated the semi-state round, runners now go from sectional to regional to state finals.
The regional field at Shelbyville will be stacked with great competition with only the top five teams and top 15 individuals not associated with the top five teams advancing to the state meet Oct. 28 in Terre Haute.
On the boys side, along with 22nd-ranked Greenfield-Central and No. 23 Mt. Vernon, the team competition includes No. 3 Fishers, No. 4 Hamilton Southeastern, No. 6 Noblesville, No. 13 Center Grove and No. 17 Franklin Central.
New Palestine and Eastern Hancock will have individual runners in the race, too.
On the girls side, along with No. 19 Mt. Vernon and Greenfield-Central, the group of runners will include teams from No. 1 Noblesville, No. 5 Hamilton Southeastern, No. 7 Franklin Central, No. 10 Westfield, No. 13 Guerin Catholic, No. 24 Roncalli and No. 25 Center Grove.
Like the boys race, New Palestine and Eastern Hancock will have runners competing.
“We’d loved to make it as a team to state, but we want our (top) three, for sure, to have a good race,” Greenfield-Central boys cross country coach Aaron Smith said. “We want to get them there, they’ve worked hard all season and for their careers.”
Greenfield-Central’s top three of Chris Ross, Carter Crouch and Liam Brinkruff, all seniors, have been toward the top of the lead pack in most races this season. Crouch and Ross finished 1-2 at last week’s Mt. Vernon Sectional. Brinkruff was fifth and is the only returning county runner that qualified for last year’s state meet.
Mt. Vernon senior Colin Strachman and Eastern Hancock junior Preston Markley are also coming off top 10 finishes at the sectional. The Marauder team ran a strong race with all five of their scoring runners running 5Ks in under 17 minutes.
For the girls, Mt. Vernon knew it would get through at the sectional. Coach Lydgia Palmer was able to rest a couple of varsity runners to hopefully have them closer to full strength for Saturday’s regional.
Mt. Vernon’s Hannah Hauser was fifth at the sectional. Greenfield-Central had a nice run led by Josie Kinnaman and Lexie Copeland finishing seventh and eighth, respectively.
New Palestine senior Courtney Study was just outside the top 10 placing 11th.
Saturday’s regional will take place at the Blue River Cross Country Course in Shelbyville. Greenfield-Central, Mt. Vernon and New Palestine are familiar with the course that also hosts the Hoosier Heritage Conference Meet. Area competitors also ran there earlier this year in the Golden Bear Invitational.
On Saturday, the boys race leads off the 5K doubleheader at 10:30 a.m. The girls race is scheduled for 11:15 a.m.
