Sam Lechlitner, center, leaves the start line with the rest of Warsaw’s boys cross country team at last year’s Tiger Invite. Lechlitner is expected to be a pace setter for the Tigers as 2018 opens. (File photo by James Costello)

WARSAW — Warsaw boys cross country coach Jim Mills has a saying that he’s fond of — the best thing about freshmen is that they become sophomores.

Well, a talented freshman class has now entered its sophomore season, and Mills is excited about what the season holds.

“This is actually the first time I was a little more excited about our team because we are young,” said Mills. “We are really young.”

Four sophomores look to slot into the top of the Tigers’ lineup in 2018. Tanner Stiver looks promising after a strong turn running the 800 for Warsaw track last spring, while Jacob Kissling and Hunter Thompson are back with the team after running sub-18-minute times last fall. But the sophomore Mills is most excited about is Sam Lechlitner.

“Towards the end of cross country, he just kept coming on. He’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever coached, and he’s got a great attitude, always got a smile on his face no matter how hard he’s working. When you put that together with ability, at some point it’s going to come out and I think it really came out right at the end of track season,” said Mills of Lechlitner. “He’s lighting it up in practice. We were up at camp, had a really tough camp, and he killed the workouts there. I’ll be shocked if he’s not going to be one of the top three runners in the conference for sure.”

For his part, Lechlitner is feeling pretty good about the approaching season, too.

Last year’s Northern Lakes Conference cross country meet began boosting the then-freshman’s confidence, and it carried over to a strong spring season on the track in which Lechlitner was one of Warsaw’s leaders in both the 1600 meters and the 3200 meters.

“The times last year, we had some good times. I think just based off the times we’ve been running in workouts and long runs, they’ve been really picking it up. Coach Mills has been pushing us a little bit harder. I’m excited to start racing because I think we’ll have some pretty solid times,” Lechlitner said.

Lechlitner follows 2017 grad Lucas Howett at the Northern Lakes Conference Track and Field Championships last spring. Howett and other Tiger seniors helped prepare Lechlitner for what was to be expected in his sophomore season. (File photo by Mike Deak)

Given his coach’s lofty expectations, Lechlitner has been thrown into a leadership position this season. It’s not always an easy role to play as a mere sophomore, but he said after some conversations with last year’s outgoing seniors, it’s a role Lechlitner was anticipating.

“It’s been a little bit more difficult than freshman year trying to lead everybody, but it’s been going pretty well,” he said.

“I knew that we had a bunch of solid seniors that were going to be leaving, and they knew it too so they were telling me ‘Hey, you’re going to have to step it up next year. You’re going to have to start leading those guys.’ So I guess that kind of prepared me for it.”

It isn’t just the sophomore class that figures to fit into the top of Warsaw’s lineup this year, either.

Former pace setter Zeb Hernandez is back with the team after serving a suspension sitting out most of last season, although it may take him awhile to get back into form after being sidelined so long. Seniors Jack Horoho and Anthony Bass return for their senior seasons, and Mills is hoping this can be the year they finally break out. And there’s an even bigger influx of promising freshmen this season that look to add to the mix as the season progresses.

“My team is 20 freshmen and sophomores. A large majority of our top seven are going to be in that sophomore class,” said Mills. “To be honest, I think if things play out that we can win the conference. I think Wawasee is probably the best team, but we’ve got the unknowns. We’ve got Zeb, if we can get him back where he was. We’ve got Sam, who I firmly believe is going to be in the top three or four in the conference. That’s a pretty good start. Then you just need to fill in the blanks, and we’ve got a half-dozen guys who can do it. “

The Tigers are looking for a top finish in the NLC meet, where they’re always in the hunt for a championship, and they’re hoping to continue their streak of success in the early stages of the state tournament, where they’ve won seven straight sectional and six straight regional championships. But they’re not really talking about those meets at the start of 2018. They have their eyes set on even bigger goals.

“Every year if we don’t make it to state, it’s disappointing because we should,” Mills said. “We should’ve been there last year, but then you lose your frontrunner. We’ve come close the last few years. When we talk to the kids, we don’t talk about the conference or the sectional or anything like that. The end result is it’s kind of a disappointing season if you don’t make it down there to Terre Haute. We’ve been down there, and we’ve done well, so I think that’s where our expectations always are.”

“I think, yes, state is a big goal,” echoed Lechlitner. “The two seniors, they’re really wanting to because it’s their senior year. Going to state would be great. But I think just an overall sense of improvement from last year from our guys because we’ve had a lot of guys stepping up. Also, the thing that we talk about is it doesn’t really matter what people say. I think the polls had us somewhere in the 30s for rank at state, but we’re out there to run hard and see what we can do.”

Lady Tigers

Like their boys counterparts, Warsaw’s girls also have some big gaps to fill in the lineup this season, namely in the team’s consistent top two from last year — three-time state qualifier Mia Beckham and fellow outgoing senior Emma Bohnenkamper, who finished 31st at the New Prairie Semistate last fall.

But the Lady Tigers do have the benefit of a ton of returning talent in Beckham’s younger sisters Remy and Adree, a senior and sophomore, respectively, as well as seniors Carmen Yoder, Angie Sanchez-Vijil and Megan Dawson and juniors Amslie Howett, Alex Hermann. Freshmen Wini Barrnett, Mariana Malagon and Ava Knight join the squad this year, too.

“It is exciting, but yet the unknown right now — I just kind of want to get this first run in and see exactly where our training puts us so we know where we need to focus a little bit more,” said first-year WHS coach Jason Fleming. “But I am excited, and I’ve got a great group of kids willing to work hard. Everybody I feel is buying into our team mentality. It’s not just all about one or two or three and what are each of us going to do to contribute to that whole.”

Which is kind of the team’s philosophy for 2018 — to get it done with pack running, rather than relying on a few frontrunners to score low for the squad.

“That’s one of our mentalities, that’s one of the things as a coaching staff that we are really pushing — that tight pack mentality, pushing each other up. Instead of letting one or two people do the work up front, we’re looking for a whole host of different personalities up front to really move the whole team up,” said Fleming.

While Fleming may be new to Warsaw High School cross country, he isn’t new to Tigers running. He’s spent the past three years coaching cross country at Edgewood Middle School, so he’s familiar with many of his runners this season. He hasn’t been afraid to ask his colleagues for help, either, and they’ve been gracious enough to lend a hand.

“I know a lot of these kids. They’ve run for me in the past. Some of them, this will be my third year working with already so I kind of know their tendencies, they know me, they know what to expect when it comes to workouts and off-days and in the weight room,” said Fleming. “I’ve found that to be very helpful in the offseason here, but then again I’m moving to a different level. I’ve gotten a lot of help from a lot of experienced coaches with our high school track distance coach Pete Beiegler and of course our assistant coach Nate Howett and Jim Mills on the boys side. They’ve really helped out a lot making sure we have the right combinations of whether it be speed or tempo or distance workouts in. I’m constantly learning myself a little bit here and there putting together some things, and I feel like we’ve had a pretty productive preseason.”

Warsaw’s cross country seasons begin at the Tigers’ home invitational Tuesday, Aug. 21.