By E. Shawn Aylsworth
Managing Editor
It may have been the eighth time in 29 years that a boys-girls sweep had occurred at the IHSAA Cross Country State Finals, but it was the first time it happened to Columbus North.
The top-ranked Bull Dogs got things rolling in the 1 p.m. ET boys race at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute by thumping runner-up No. 6 Chesterton by 58 points for the team title. No. 3 North Central (Indianapolis) took third behind sophomore Futsum Zeinasellassie’s individual win, with second-ranked Carmel finishing fourth.
Then the No. 2 Columbus North girls finished the sweep 45 minutes later in upsetting top-ranked (and very young) Carmel by an amazing 82 points for the crown. No. 3 Franklin Central finished in third, with No. 4 Noblesville fourth.
It was the second straight season in which a school had finished the feat, with Carmel having done so last year in legendary coach Chuck Koeppen’s farewell season. It was the third state championship on the boys side for both the school and coach Rick Weinheimer (2002, 2003), who snagged his first female coaching crown when the girls came home on top Saturday.
Boys roll to crowns at all four levels of postseason competition
Columbus North proved to be Bad Company for the other boys teams, pulling off their state finals win by runnin’ with the pack.
Sophomore Andrew Diehn led the Bull Dogs’ five scoring runners, placing ninth overall in 16:23.5. But it was the 17-18-19 finish by their next three runners that made all the difference as senior Evan Scruton (16:37.2), sophomore Christopher Kelsey (16:40.0), and senior Corbin Brooks (16:41.6) stuck together in traffic.
The icing? Junior Gabe Ocasio’s 22nd-place effort in 16:49.2.
“Congratulations to a fantastic Columbus North team, which dominated winning with only 63 points,” said first-year Carmel coach Erhard "Doc" Bell.
At the Oct. 24 Carmel Semistate, the Bull Dogs dominated the field in running away with the team title. The Dogs ran in a pack and seemed impervious to all obstacles, be they natural or human.
Columbus North placed five runners in the Top 12 of the team scoring en route to compiling just 44 points and overwhelming runner-up Noblesville, which ended with 101. Host Carmel (131) edged out rival third-ranked North Central (Indianapolis) by one point for third.
The difference in time between the top Bull Dog runner and the fifth member of the team (Brooks, 12th in the team scoring and 16th overall) was a mere 25 seconds. Andrew Diehn led the assault, finishing fifth in the scoring and sixth overall in a time of 15:46.9.
On Oct. 17 at Greensburg, Columbus North had ripped through regional competition as though it wasn’t even there. On the heels of an overwhelming performance in the sectional (see below), the Bull Dogs were even more impressive at a meet where the competition was supposed to be tougher in sweeping the top six individual positions in the race.
Scruton led the way with a winning regional time of 5:05.7, four-tenths of a second better than runner-up Diehn, as the Bull Dogs totaled 15 points to outdistance runner-up No. 24 Center Grove (67).
The Bull Dogs had gone 1-2-3-5-6 four days earlier at the Edinburgh Sectional, with Scruton’s 5:02.4 some 5.2 seconds better than runner-up Ocasio. That, in turn, was half a second better than Diehn as Columbus North (17) defeated Center Grove (59) for the crown.
Girls bounce back from third-place finish at semistate
In their lopsided girls state finals victory, the balanced Bull Dogs represented every class in coming home 9-16-31-34-41.
Junior Jessica Richardson finished ninth overall in 19:48.0. She was followed in 16th by senior Siri Retrum (19:53.3), in 31st by senior Virginia Steilberg (20:14.8), in 34th by sophomore Erin Shuffett (20:23.4), and in 41st by freshman Rachael Sollman (20:33.0).
“Columbus North ran a fine race and earned a well-deserved title,” said first-year Carmel coach Mark Ellington. “Congratulations to them!”
Despite some challenging course conditions and a couple of disappointing individual performances, Ellington said, his sophomore-led Greyhounds rallied late to hold on to second place, just five points ahead of Franklin Central.
Carmel was led by a fifth-place finish from sophomore Sarah Bennett and 24th-place finish by classmate Allison Jacobsen. Sophomore Renee Wellman finished 26th, classmate Lauren Kahre 70th, and senior Lindsey Brown 104th.
“Without the strong finishes from Kahre, Brown, and Taff, the team might not have made the podium this afternoon,” Ellington said.
So how did Columbus North bounce back from a disappointing third-place finish the weekend before at the Carmel Semistate, on a blustery day better fit for football than cross country?
That’s when Carmel had won a tough, four-way competition for the semistate title as the Greyhounds bested Franklin Central and the Bulldogs for the crown. All four teams ended with fewer than 100 points, with Carmel grabbing the title with a total of 58.
The Greyhounds’ effort was boosted by the individual winning performance of Sarah Bennett in 18:42.
Columbus North (82), led by Richardson’s ninth-place 6:06, finished 9-17-18-24-26. That was third behind 58-point Carmel’s 1-3-19-21-23 output and the 5-12-13-27-30 effort from Noblesville (79).
Motivation, indeed.
At the Greensburg Regional, Columbus North – led by Richardson’s runner-up 6:09.6 – went 2-3-4-6-7 in besting No. 17 Center Grove, 22-60, Oct. 17 for the title. Paced by Richardson’s winning time of 6:05.6, the Bull Dogs had gone 1-2-4-6-7 in downing Center Grove, 20-42, for the Edinburgh Sectional title Oct. 13.
Congratulations to the Conference Indiana school on the cross country sweep!
