By TED SCHULTZ, for The Democrat

The Brown County Regional features 10 teams and about 90 runners. For the semistate, those numbers double.

That made for some crowded conditions in Saturday’s Brown County Semistate at Eagle Park. Three Eagles runners competed, but fell short of qualifying for the state finals.

Marino Dolph led with less trouble than the other two. The senior finished 38th in the boys race in a personal-best 16 minutes, 47.8 seconds for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles).

“I feel really good,” Dolph said. “I didn’t use a watch because I have a habit of looking at it, and it always messed with me. So I just tried to just race, and it really helped to be with people because I haven’t really had this many people to run with all season long. It worked out really well for me.”

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Brown County’s other boys individual, senior Jackson McPheeters, finished 97th in 17:38.8.

“Today’s race, it was so crowded on the course that I had to check up a couple times,” McPheeters said. “I had to break stride, and a lot of people were crowding in, so I had to slow down and go around them, and I added distance onto the race trying to get around the huge crowd of people. The race just didn’t go how I planned it to go, and I didn’t finish where I needed to.”

On the girls side, Eagles sophomore Emelia Koester finished 62nd in 20:32.5.

“I felt like I was trapped behind a lot of people, and I couldn’t really move up that much,” Koester said. “A girl elbowed me in my rib. I’m still happy. Next year, I’ll just have to train a lot earlier and harder.”

The top six teams and top 10 individuals not on qualifying teams in both the girls and boys races qualified for Saturday’s state finals in Terre Haute.