TERRE HAUTE — Mt. Vernon senior Ahmed Saleh became the school’s first all-state boys cross country runner since 2015, finishing ninth in the IHSAA Cross Country State Finals at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Saturday.
Saleh placed ninth with a time of 15:26.8. It was a career-best 5K time for Saleh and a top-five time in the history of the Mt. Vernon program.
Christian Noble was the school’s last all-state runner. He was fourth in 2015 with a time of 15:24.9. He’s also the school-record holder in the 5K at 14:55.
“Saleh was under 3 minutes both of his first 2 Ks,” Mt. Vernon coach Bruce Kendall said. “He was 2:56 and 2:52, that’s pretty hard to do and that helped keep him in front of all the trouble.”
The rest of the Marauder team wasn’t as fortunate.
“There’s a point in a cross country race where there’s going to be a lot of kids, a big bubble, around the 16:20s,” Kendall said. “It’s a mass of humanity. When they cross the line it’s about 2.5 kids every second. There’s like 75 points go by in 15-20 seconds and you have to be on the front half of that bubble. If you don’t get past that bubble after the 1K mark, it’s hard to get around it. You’re going to be in front of it or behind it, and we were behind it.”
Mt. Vernon ended up 16th of 25 teams with a score of 403. They were just two points behind 15th-place Ben Davis (401) and 14 points behind 14th-place Warsaw (389). Bloomington North won with a score of 105. Noblesville was second with 115. There were 248 runners in the race.
After Saleh, Xaiden Jenson was Mt. Vernon’s No. 2 runner, he ran a time of 16:30.3. It placed 125th overall and totaled 78 points for the team score.
Eastern Hancock’s Preston Markley, the Royals first-ever cross country state finalist was 16 seconds ahead of Jenson, but finished nearly 40 places better with a time of 16:14, good enough for 86th place.
Mt. Vernon’s Landon Willis finished in 16:38.7 and was 150th overall and 92nd among the team scorers.
Brayden Strantz, was the Marauders’ fourth runner at 16:40.9 placing 157th and 96th.
The top four Mt. Vernon runners are all seniors. Its final three are juniors. Caden Cassada led that group and was the final runner for the team score. He was 204th overall (132 points) in 17:03.9. Cooper Hunziker was 210th in 17:09.1 and Austin Baugh placed 237th with a time of 17:41.2.
“The seven boys that ran, they all had a great season,” Kendall said. “I can’t complain. We won about everything that we could possibly win. Brown County we were fifth but only two points off Fishers and Bloomington North that day. We didn’t win the Valley [Kickoff], but that was the season opener. We pretty much ran the table on everything we did and we did it in big fashion, until we got to the regional. You can’t script the season much better than that.”
The only other Hancock County competitor in the boys race, Jacob Cooper of New Palestine, ran a time of 17:40.7 to finish in the 234th spot.
Cooper was New Palestine’s first boys state qualifier since 2013.
There was only one county runner in the girls race.
Greenfield-Central Josie Kinnaman was the first girl runner in school history to qualify for two state finals.
She had a strong race, finishing 67th among 248 competitors. Her time of 18:59.2 was just two seconds off her personal best and five seconds away from the school record.
Last year, Kinnaman placed 92nd with a time of 19:14.8.
