After finishing third at last year’s New Haven Semistate, the Warsaw girls cross country team is headed to New Prairie this time around. Because of realignment, Warsaw’s path to the state finals has changed this year, but the 14th-ranked Lady Tigers are still primed for a berth in next week’s championship meet. To qualify for the state meet at Indiana State’s LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute on Oct. 27, Warsaw must first finish among the top six teams at Saturday’s New Prairie Semistate, where there’s some strong competition. “It should be a very strong semistate with two of the best teams (in the state), with (No. 2) West Lafayette and the team that beat us at regional, (No. 5) Eastern,” Warsaw girls cross country coach Scott Erba said. “Between (No. 15) Valparaiso, (No. 13) Chesterton and us, looking at the scoring based on times so far, it's going to be very close.” With his daughter Ashley Erba, the defending state champion, likely finishing first and senior Sarah Ray having also performed well all season, the race could be decided with Warsaw’s No. 3, 4 and 5 runners – freshman Hannah Dawson, freshman Emma Hayward and junior Madeline Hooks. “The quicker they get across the line and the more people that are behind them, the better for us,” Erba said. Perhaps the top runner in the state, as well as one of the top in the country, Ashley Erba will be returning to the course where she suffered her only loss in two seasons on Sept. 15 at the New Prairie Invitational. At that invite, Erba was stunned by Mishawaka sophomore Anna Rohrer, who won in 17:14 while Erba was second in 17:25. Those times were two of the best in the nation, but Erba seems to have been motivated by that outcoming, having set a new Indiana cross country record Saturday at the Culver Academies Regional, winning in a time of 17:12. “She's feeling good,” Scott Erba said about his daughter, who’s being recruited by the top cross country teams in the country. “She's run the New Prairie course a couple of times. She ran a very good time a few weeks ago and I know she's looking to run much faster than that coming up Saturday. It's a course that can provide a really good time, even though there is a tricky middle part when you're running through a little bit of sand, then up a pretty steep hill, but the rest of it is very favorable. It's really wide open with a lot of long straightaways to build and maintain speed.” And returning to the site of her lone defeat, she’s not likely to be upset again, although her coach/father is cautious of defending New Prairie Semistate champion Bobbie Burgess of West Lafayette. “Bobbie Burgess, who's a senior from West Lafayette, she has the third best time in the state right now and she's always improving,” he said. “She's a strong runner. I think she just ran a 17:36 a couple weeks ago at the sectional. She's one who I'm sure's going to be competitive. I wouldn't expect this to be a total runaway.” Ashley Erba and Burgess were both at last month’s New Prairie Invitational, although Erba ran in the large-school division and Burgess was in the small-school race. On that day, Erba’s 17:25 was good for second in her race, while Burgess won the other race in a time of 18:20. Like Ashley Erba, many other Lady Tigers ran very well on the course at New Prairie. “Some of our girls ran their best times, at that point,” Scott Erba said. “It is a course you can run fast on. I think there will favorable weather conditions – it doesn't look like it's supposed to be extremely windy, wet or cold. It's going to be pretty nice, so I think there's going to be a lot of really good times run. Part of that will be the teams there, because they're really going to be competing to get to state.” And with good times, Erba sees his girls returning to the state finals for the second-straight year. “Our No. 1 goal is to be top six,” he said. “Top six, that would give us a satisfactory result. That gives us that berth on to state, which is big for us because we haven't done that a lot in Warsaw history. We've only had two other teams make it, so it's still a big deal. We feel confident we can be in that top six. We also have a secondary goal of being top three. There's not a lot of difference between being top six and being top three, I don't believe. We want to shoot for that spot. That would be a big boost for us knowing we can be top three in a very competitive semistate.”
