By DAVID WOOD, The Democrat
Brown County’s cross-country squads hosted their annual BCXC challenge last week and walked away with two top-four finishes.
Despite sporadic downpours at the Aug. 15 meet, boys and girls from seven schools ran the 3.11-mile course in a paired relay.
Brown County’s notable finishers included seniors Marino Dolph and Jackson McPheeters, who were first among 25 other boys duos with a combined time of 16:23. Sophomores Eme Koester and Anna Fleetwood finished fourth among 30 girls pairs in 19:44.
The race exists mostly as a preseason tune-up. Head Coach Rob Abraham said it’s a good indicator of effort put in over the summer — “if you conditioned well or if you took the summer off,” he said.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]While the race isn’t a complete tell-all, Abraham believes both the boys’ and girls’ scores represent the work they’ve put in and how they may fare later into the season.
“I think we’re going to be okay with our lead guys and girls. I think the ones who have done the work are going to be fine and they’ll be able to do well at the end of the season,” he said.
Dolph felt that despite the first-place finish, he and McPheeters had room for improvement. “We would have done better if we had people to run with (at the front of the pack), but all things considered, with the messy course, we did fairly well,” Dolph said
As the first runner in the pair, Dolph took an early lead, which only grew as he handed off to McPheeters. McPheeters crossed the finish line alone with the nearest competitor nearly a full minute behind.
“Jackson and Marino, they ran well winning by a landslide. I was hoping it was going to be a little bit closer so they would actually have to race, but they were by themselves for most of the time,” Abraham said.
This year, McPheeters hopes to follow in the footsteps of former teammate and recent graduate Wyatt Wyman. Wyman finished 99th at state in 2017, a finish McPheeters plans to equal or surpass.
While not quite paralleling the success of their teammates, Koester and Fleetwood still clinched a respectable fourth-place finish among stiff competition. All three pairs finishing ahead of them were from Noblesville, a powerhouse cross-country program ranked 11th in the state.
“We had a pretty good idea of where we’d end up with Noblesville being here. We knew we’d be behind them, but we knew everyone else would be behind us.” Fleetwood said.
“I feel like I ran a pretty good race. I was consistent on my times and my miles. I finished strong too, so, pretty good.”
Koester believes running against the Noblesville squad, as well as the rest of the schools present, will help their pacing as they work further into the season.
“I think now that we’ve run with some of the teams, we know who to run with now from today’s meet,” she said.
