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Warsaw girls cross country coach Paul Sibray may not care for it to be known, but his team is off to its best start in some time. Tuesday, his Tiger runners opened the Northern Lakes Conference season by dominating Concord 16-45 and Plymouth 18-42 and jumping into the drivers seat in the NLC.
"It's been a tremendous start," Sibray said. "Tonight, I knew we could compete, and I thought it would be a lot closer than it was. Both Plymouth and Concord are good teams and the girls just ran super well tonight."
But Sibray is a bit uneasy with his team's success. He doesn't necessarily want his team to be the one teams are gunning for, although it gets hard to stay low-key when you're a school as large as Warsaw and a team as strong as this cross country team is beginning to get.
"I don't want to send any messages," Sibray said. "Warsaw is Warsaw. I hope they don't read anything about us. I'd just as soon go into a meet and they think that we're the same team as last year."
Everyone knows Summer Boyd is the runner to beat when it comes to Warsaw girls cross country. But Tuesday, the Tigers' opponents had more than just her to worry about. Sure, she won the meet but Hillary Barlow and Jennifer Finch came in right behind her in second and third place overall. Barlow was battling illness and Sibray heaped praise on her.
"She didn't think she could even run. I said to just go out and get a nice pace. She went out just as hard as she always has and that's just typical of the kind of kids we have. She has the guts and did fantastic."
Melanie Alberts placed fifth overall for the Tigers and Abbie Simmons rounded out the scoring for Warsaw with a ninth place finish overall.
Not to be outdone, the Warsaw boys cross country team equaled what the girls did by sweeping Concord 22-36 and Plymouth 22-35. The Tiger boys have taken some lumps in the early going after losing David Hoffert and Will Woodward to graduation after last year. But things went well Tuesday.
"It was a big night tonight," head coach Jeff Grose said. "It's always close with these other schools in the conference. They've all come together, put a lot of effort in, and it's paying off."
Chris Gackenheimer finished second overall and Justin Rice finished fourth. David Robertson, Don Kennedy and Jacob Sweatland followed those two by placing sixth, eighth and ninth overall.
"I was hoping maybe for second (place in the conference) with all the losses we had last year," Grose said. "But you never know. I'm real excited for them, and they're real excited. Maybe we can do better than we thought. I'm looking forward to the next several weeks."
Warsaw will be at Rensselaer Central Saturday at 8 a.m. before resuming conference action Tuesday at NorthWood with Goshen at 5 p.m.
BOYS: WARSAW 22, CONCORD 36; WARSAW 22, PLYMOUTH 35; PLYMOUTH 26, CONCORD 29
Top 10 finishes - 1. Myers (C) 17:45, 2. Gackenheimer (W) 17:53, 3. Huff (P) 17:55, 4. Rice (W) 17:59, 5. Kariger (P) 18:13, 6. Robertson (W) 18:18, 7. Bounds (C) 18:20, 8. Kennedy (W) 18:25, 9. Ja. Sweatland (W) 18:26, 10. Jefferies (P) 18:27
Other Warsaw results - 11. Sibray 18:32, 17. Conley 19:21, 18. Krallman 19:21, 19. Ridderman 19:28, 20. Bausch 19:41, 22. Miller 19:56, 29. Peters 20:36, 30. Fawley 20:37, 32. Jo. Sweatland 21:17, 36. Popenfoose 22:37, 39. Pickens 24:02
GIRLS: WARSAW 16, CONCORD 45; WARSAW 18, PLYMOUTH 42; CONCORD 26, PLYMOUTH 30
Top 10 finishes - 1. Boyd (W) 16:30, 2. Barlow (W) 16:43, 3. Finch (W) 16:52, 4. Benge (P) 17:00, 5. Alberts (W) 17:12, 6. Latzke (C) 17:19, 7. Adams (P) 17:33, 8. Simmons (W) 18:07, 9. Robertson (W) 18:08, 10. Stump (C) 18:14
Other Warsaw results - 13. Fluke 18:43, 14. Love 18:44, 19. Noble 19:43, 20. Wilhite 20:13, 21. Martin 20:16, 24. Harrold 20:41, 25. Mackey 21:00, 26. Harmon 21:03, 27. Winston 21:06, 31. Marandet 22:01, 32. Ellison 22:19, 33. Seisonof 22:23, 34. Bowers 22:28
