Jesse Floor will represent Tippecanoe Valley at next week’s regional after placing 14th at Saturday’s sectional with his time of 17:42. (Photos by Nick Goralczyk)

CULVER – Perfect fall weather and the historical beauty of the Culver Academy campus set the scene for the 2014 IHSAA Culver Academies Boys Cross Country Sectional Saturday morning. Spectators were in for a treat as the 62 runners from 10 area schools ran a competitive race that would end up giving a regional birth to two local teams and one individual.

Warsaw’s boys team followed the example set by its girls squad by claiming it fourth consecutive sectional title, just as the ladies did in the first race of the day. The Tigers 37 points were comfortably ahead of second place Culver Academies 63 points. Triton’s team also found its way into next week’s regional as did Tippecanoe Valley’s Jesse Floor.

The Tigers were the heavy favorite of the day, but head coach Jim Mills was still looking for the fire out of his runners in Saturday’s race.

“We just have not been competitive,” began Mills. “We’ve been in this funk and last Saturday was way more positive than negative. We had one medical issue but we got past that. Our guys showed some competitiveness last Saturday and today they came out and did it again.

“We had two freshmen in the lineup and they ran great. It’s just about little steps right now trying to get back to where we need to be. But, we’ve still got two weeks before the big race (the IHSAA State Finals) and you just never know. That’s why you have to run every race.”

The two freshmen that Mills referred to were Lucas Howett and Nathaniel Gottschalk. Both did more than just hold their own in the sectional field as both were top-20 finishers. Howett (17:37.3) finished 12th while Gottschalk ran a time of 17:49, good enough for 17th place.

While the freshmen showed well, the real success came from the upperclassmen. Senior Owen Glogovsky ran a team-best 16:45.2, only Caston’s Seth Counsins (16:31.6) ran a faster time on Saturday.

Fellow senior Daniel Messenger came in 4th place with a time of 17:00.8 while junior Jonathan Beres (17:05.7) finished 6th. TJ Day (17:38.3) and Jacob DeBoest (17:43.4) rounded out the scores for the Tigers.

Warsaw will be joined at the regional in Culver next Saturday by another local team as the Triton Trojans used a score of 126 point to claim a fourth place finish.

“We are peaking at the right time,” remarked Triton head coach Wes Rettinger. “We felt that we could finish fourth coming in and that’s exactly where we ended up. We’re happy with that.

“Cordell Sherow has been running fourth for us but he moved up and ran second today and did a great job. Like I said, we’re peaking at the right time and we will hope to continue that next week.”

Sherow ran an 18:11.1 for the Trojans, finishing in 24th place. He was immediately followed by teammates Landon Kaufman (18:14.7) and Bailey Watkins (18:19.5). Shaun Honeycutt was the fifth score for the Trojans with his time of 19:09.1.

Derek Johnston led Triton with his 18th place finish thanks to his time of 17:51.8.

Tippecanoe Valley missed the cut as the Vikings finished in 7th place, but junior Jesse Floor managed to run his way into a regional spot.

Floor finished 14th with a time of 17:42 and will hope to get through again at regional next weekend, something he fell short of in 2013.

“It feels good to make it out,” Floor began. “I’m hoping to make it to semi-state this year, but I will have my work cut out for me.

“I’m stronger than I was last year. I’ve made a lot of improvements and taken around 30 seconds off of my time since the regional last season. I’m ready for the challenge that the regional will bring this year.”

Shay Merley (20:12.4), Tom Solano (20:28.7), Devin Childers (20:37.4), Jared Mikel (20:42), Andy Herrera (21:24.5) and Tyler Ross (22:31.3) made up the rest of the scores for the Vikings.

Rochester, Caston and Culver Academies will join Triton and Warsaw at next weekend’s regional. The race is set to start a 11:10 p.m. Warsaw won the regional in both 2012 and 2013.