The Warsaw girls varsity cross country team poses for a team picture after winning a program seventh-straight title at the NLC Championships at OxBow Park Saturday. (Photos by James Costello)

GOSHEN — Warsaw’s girls cross country team backed up an unbeaten run through the conference round robin, while the Tiger boys came up short in their bid to make up ground on Elkhart Memorial at the Northern Lakes Conference Championships Saturday.

The Lady Tigers put up a score of 32 to win the NLC meet by 20 points over Elkhart Memorial, while Northridge placed third with a score of 82. NorthWood finished fifth with a 121 score, and Wawasee was sixth in the girls meet 11 points back with a 132.

It was the seventh straight title for Warsaw’s girls, but the first under current head coach Jason Fleming.

“I’m just really happy with all the girls,” Fleming said. “I’m proud of everything they’ve accomplished this year. We’ve had some great races. It has been a very remarkable first year.”

Pacing the Lady Tigers was Adree Beckham in second place with a 19:05.99 time behind individual champion Morgan Dyer of Memorial and her winning 18:47.31 stop. Beckham’s teammate Wini Barnett was close bend with a 19:38.79 make for third place overall.

“She and Winnie keep trading back and forth,” said Fleming of Beckham. “Adree thrives more in the up and down. Winnie loves the open courses, and I think between the combination of them, they feed off one another so this next race more than likely we’re going to see Winnie out front. I feel they make each other better runners because they’re constantly just feeding off of each other, and you can see it at practice as well.”

Adree’s older sister Remi finished sixth Saturday with a 20:00.79 time, and Angie Sanchez was ninth in 20:14.72 as four of the Lady Tigers’ top five all landed in the top 10 at the big meet. Ava Knight placed 12th in 20:32.76 to complete her team’s score and earn the squad a fifth spot on the All-NLC list reserved for the meet’s overall top 15 finishers.

But as impressive as the Warsaw girls’ varsity race was, the Lady Tigers’ junior varsity team was even more dominant as the Warsaw JV crowded out the top 11 places in their race, paced by Alex Hermann’s winning time of 21:01.1, and the team claimed 13 of the top 15 overall places.

“I was really excited about how well the JV did. I knew we had a bunch up front, but with the NIC running in the same race, it’s kind of hard to really pick out how well we’re doing. But when you put them all up there, and we’ve got 13 of the top 15 in the JV race, that’s pretty encouraging,” Fleming said.

“I think we’ve got some depth. I think we’ve got things obviously we can continue to work on, and hopefully we can hit our stride when the state tournament starts next weekend.”

NorthWood’s girls just missed the top 15 in Saturday’s varsity race, but a pack of three Lady Panthers crossed the line within a little over three seconds of one another inside the overall top 20. Kaitlin Burden clocked a 21:20.11 time for 17th, Whitney Wolfe was 18th in 21:21.7, and Hannah Brubaker finished 19th in 21:23.7.

“Whitney Wolfe, our senior, has been number one pretty much all season and had separated herself by a good 20, 30 seconds from the rest of the pack. She had a good race today,” said NorthWood girls coach Mark Mikel. “Whitney ran well, an average kind of time for her, but the big jump was Kaitlin Burden, our freshman that nudged Whitney at the line. And then Hannah Brubaker, a senior captain, came through really, really well. That was a nice pack to see. And everybody else kind of had sort of average days.”

Jennifer Martinez placed 30th in 21:49.78, and Laura Schrock was 37th in 22:09.71 to complete the Lady Panthers’ score. The NorthWood JV girls finished second behind Warsaw, meanwhile, with a score of 67.

Wawasee’s McKenzie Smith approaches the chute at Saturday’s race.

Pacing Wawasee’s girls was McKenzie Smith with a 20:26.34 time, good enough for 10th place and an All-NLC nod in the senior’s final conference meet.

“She did get beaten today by some girls she beat this regular season, so there are some things to work on there to be a little more strong in the middle of the race, but I thought it was nice for her to lock up an all-conference spot,” said coach Doug Slabaugh.

Bailey Mayhew and Emma Ebright crossed the line within a tenth of a second of one another as Mayhew clocked 21:37.2 for 24th place, and Ebright was 25th in 21:37.3. Lily Tyler ran a strong race in 31st with a 21:51.84 stop, while Ella Beazley was 42nd in 22:49.49 as usual top five runner Cammy Kryder slipped into the team’s seventh spot Saturday.

“She had an off week so she’ll bounce back at sectional,” said Slabaugh of Kryder.

“Out of our normal top five, four of them are new to it this year, and a couple have never run cross country before. I think that’s part of it with such a young team that there’s going to be some flux in races, but obviously at this point in the year we can’t afford those. You’ve got to be on.”

The Lady Warriors’ JV had a good showing with a score of 89 for third place in their race, led by Katlin VanFleeren, who bettered her personal best time by more than two minutes with a 22:27.7 time for 12th place.

In the boys’ race, meanwhile, Warsaw was hoping to top the team standings and thus split the overall conference title with Memorial, who handed the Tigers’ their only loss in round robin racing. But instead, the Tigers were nudged out of the number two team spot by Concord, 74-81, and the Chargers scored a 59 to clinch sole possession of the boys NLC crown.

Elkhart Memorial’s Neil Terrell outleans Warsaw’s Tanner Stiver across the finish line in OxBow Park.

The Tigers’ times were actually pretty decent, it’s just that some of their competitors moved up on them at Saturday’s conference capper.

“We had three PRs out of our top five,” explained head coach Jim Mills. “We didn’t run bad. Memorial is the better team right now.”

Sam Lechlitner, Jacob Kissling and Harrison Phipps all bettered their PRs by 10 seconds or better, Lechlitner finishing in 11th place with a 16:53, Kissling placing 20th in 27:19.91, and Phipps clocking 17:40.07 for 31st place. Tanner Stiver claimed the last all-conference spot in 15th place in the overall field with a time of 17:11.56, and Zeb Hernandez finished fourth in 16:32.09 after leading the field through two miles at OxBow Park.

“He’s turning that 5,000 into a 5,000-meter race instead of 4,500 and dying. He said his legs went dead after about 4K so he’s still getting into shape,” explained Mills of Hernandez. “This is the second week he’s gone out aggressive, and he’s falling off but he’s still hanging in there. He’s got three weeks. I think he’ll be where he needs to be by semi-state.”

Like their varsity counterparts, Warsaw’s JV boys finished third in their race Saturday with 84 points behind Concord’s 78 and Goshen’s 67.

Wawasee’s boys finished fifth in the varsity run, and the team’s top three all collected All-NLC honors along the way.

Wawasee’s Michael Hammer leads Warsaw’s Sam Lechlitner and NorthWood’s Tyler Evers early in Saturday’s varsity boys race.

Spencer Hare clocked a PR time of 16:35.8 for sixth place, Michael Hammer ran another personal best time of 16:50.25 for 10th place, and Luke Griner continued to battle through IT band issues with a 16:58.66 for 12th place. But Wawasee’s four and five finished almost a minute behind Griner as Thomas Conley collected a 37th-place finish in 17:51.56, and Karlson Hand was 44th in 18:05.87.

“Today was a good day. Spencer ran his best race of the year. Michael ran his best race of the year. Luke gutted it out; he’s been battling that IT band injury, and today he said it felt tight, sore. He didn’t run performance-wise as he did last weekend but still ran a solid race,” said Warriors coach Chad Hoffert.

“Those top three guys are doing exactly what they need to be doing. Our four, five and six, we’ve got to try to get them up a little bit closer. We’ve got to get them from the upper 17, 18-minute range to the mid-17s so that’ll be something that we just want to try to keep working at, keep chipping away.”

The JV Warriors rounded out their race in eighth place with a 191 score, meanwhile.

NorthWood finished the boys varsity meet in seventh place with a 138 score. Tyler Evers cracked the top 10 with a 16:45.67 stop for ninth place. Sam Schlatter was 24th in 17:30.98, Garrett Myers was 32nd in 17:42.36, Brady Hunsberger clocked 17:45.73 for 33rd place, and Stephen Schmidt was 40th in 17:55.3.

The JV Panthers finished fourth with a score of 91 in their meet.

THREE RIVERS CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Manchester’s Kambree Cashdollar runs in the Warsaw Invitational earlier this season. Cashdollar placed seventh individually, and the Lady Squires won the TRC Championships in Akron Saturday. (File photo by James Costello)

Manchester’s girls cross country team put up a score of 39 to win the Three Rivers Conference Meet at Tippecanoe Valley Saturday.

The Lady Squires’ top five all finished in the meet’s overall top 10 on the way to the title as Torina Runkel placed fifth in 20:04 flat, and Kambree Cashdollar, Halle Briner, Katie Barker and Jaelyn Webb finished in order in seventh through 10th place with respective times of 20:56.6, 21:07.7, 21:08.2 and 21:11.3.

Valley’s girls finished sixth with a 149 team score and were paced by Valeria Jimenez in 21st place in a time of 22:30.4. Haley Hoover was 26th in 23:16.3, Ava Craig was 32nd in 24:16.1, Lorena Santiago finished 33rd in 24:35.7, and Marissa McLean was 37th in 25:41.4.

Whitko wound up seventh in their race with a 196 score. Lily Spurlin finished in 23:00.8 for 25th place, Amaya Norman was 39th in 25:55.1, Amanda Leppek was 43rd in 26:45.9, Lizz Foutz placed 44th in 28:18.8, and Laura Jackson was 45th in 31:44.6.

Manchester’s boys put up a score of 102 for third place in their meet, meanwhile, while Wabash won the boys championship with a dominant score of 21.

Pacing the Squires was Carter Bedke in 17:34.7 for 10th place, while Wilson Nettleton was 18th in 18:07.4. Ethan Davis was 22nd in 18:32.1, Cade Jones was 24th in 18:36.6, and Reece Adamiec was 28th in 19:16.7.

Valley’s boys finished eighth in the team standings with a score of 176. Matthew Howes clocked 17:34.7 for 11th place, Mitchell Smith turned in an 18:11.6 time for 19th place, Justin Peconga was 42nd in 20:01.1, Chase Miller was 49th in 20:25.6, and Jace Holloway was 55th in 20:49.5.

Whitko finished in 10th place with a 245 score. Zack Freel was 32nd in 19:28.7, Jacob Porter was 38th in 19:47.1, Jayden Stratton was 45th in 20:06.1, Gavyn Alexander finished in 23:19 flat for 63rd place, and Caden Compton was 64th in 24:03.6.

Manchester’s junior high girls team also won the championship in their race with a score of 38. Josie Briner won the individual title in 12:16.8, Jaci Naragon placed fourth in 12:27 flat, Ayla Cashdollar was sixth in 12:32.5, Jordyn Gephart was 11th in 12:57.9, and Olivia Dale was 16th in 13:46 flat for the Lady Squires’ junior high team.

Valley’s middle school girls squad finished fourth with a 112 score. Chesnee Miller finished second behind Briner in 12:17.5. Lorna Apt was 21st in 13:56.2, Ella Myers was 27th in 14:20.7, Corinna Stiles was 30th in 14:36 flat, and Bailey Bussard clocked 14:37.2 for 32nd place.

Whitko was unable to field a full squad in the junior high meet. Addi Baxter clocked 12:25.4, Alivia Tucker finished in 14:29.5, and Chloe Thompson crossed the finish line in 18:25.5.

Also like their high school counterparts, the Squires finished third in the junior high boys race. They put up a score of 70, while Rochester’s boys claimed the championship with 41 points.

Pacing Manchester in the race was Raven King in third place with an 11:03.8 time. Cristian Hernandez[Beck was ninth in 11:41.4, Kyler Dale was 10th in 11:42.8, Lane Stetzel placed 16th in 12:15.8, and Memphis Wood finished in 13:00.4 for 32nd place.

The Vikings’ middle school boys team wound up in fifth place with a 121 score. Nolan Cumberland and Cooper Walls were 18th and 19th, respectively, n 12:21.6 and 12:24.2. Evan Myers was 21st in 12:33.5, Hunter Craft was 27th in 12:52.9, and Issac Whetstone was 36th in 13:12.5.

The Wildcats placed eighth in the meet with a 219 score. Dylan Cassidy was 38th in 13:20.6., Logan Hoffman and Isaiah Cripe were 42nd and 43rd, respectively, in 13:34.1 and 14:09.5, Sam Wise was 46th in 15:15.8, and Ed Smith placed 50th in 15:45.5.

HOOSIER NORTH ATHLETIC CONFERENCE CHAMPIONSHIPS

Caston won three of four races at the Hoosier North Athletic Conference Meet in Winamac Saturday, while Triton’s boys finished third in the high school meet with a score of 73.

Pacing the Trojans was Russell Reichard in 12th place with a time of 18:31.56, while Brandon Kitch, Jesse Page and Josiah Page finished in order in 14th through 16th with times of 18:33.11, 18:44.89 and 18:48.5. Trent Barnhart was next across the line for Triton in 27th place with a 20:47.27 stop.

Triton’s girls were unable to field a full team but MaKenna May turned in a 23:33.2 stop for 17th place, and Annie Hill placed 23rd in 24:28.61.

While Caston won both the boys and girls high school meets, the Comets also won the boys middle school meet. Triton finished sixth in that meet with a score of 140.

Chandler Westafer was 10th in 11:29.68, Tyler Gladieux was 16th in 11:41.23, Connor Stetzel was 34th in 13:19.95, Mitchell Powell placed 39th in 13:49.16, and Andrew Gould was 43rd in 14:03.19.

Winamac’s middle school girls team won the only other championship. Jocelyn Faulkner was third in 12:00.1, Ashlie McAndrews was 26th in 15:47.24, and Samantha Middaugh was 30th in 16:22.14 in that race.