NEW CARLISLE — For the third-consecutive year, the Warsaw girls cross country team is headed to the IHSAA state meet. At the New Prairie Semistate Saturday, the top six teams advanced to state, and the 21st-ranked Warsaw Lady Tigers finished fourth. “I was really just hoping to be in the top six,” said Warsaw coach Scott Erba. “When the girls asked before the meet about how high I thought they could place, I said, ‘First is out of the question, but if you run real well, you could finish as high as second.’ The girls ran great.” First place did go to top-ranked West Lafayette, which scored 32 points, followed by No. 16 LaPorte (116), No. 13 Portage (126), Warsaw (167), No. 19 Lake Central (179) and Twin Lakes (185). The aforementioned teams will now travel to the Wabash Valley Sports Center in Terre Haute Saturday, where they’ll compete against the best in the state. While a state title may be out of the question for the Lady Tigers, Erba is pleased to keep the team’s recent streak of state finals appearances alive. By qualifying, Warsaw earned its third-straight state finals appearance, and its fourth all-time. “The big goal for them this year was to make it to the state meet,” Erba said. “In the long run now, we’ve had three years in a row (at state), so that sets the mindset of, ‘This is what we do every year. We go to state meets.’ Since we have such a large group of younger girls, we talked about laying some ground work.” Freshman Allison Miller led the Warsaw attack at the semistate, crossing the finish line in 19th place in a time of 19:32. “She ran a fantastic race,” Erba said. “After I got home, I found out she was the fastest freshman at that semistate. That’s great for her.” Miller’s finish was nice, but the key to Warsaw’s victory was the pack running of sophomores Brooke Rhodes (39th, 20:10), Hannah Dawson (40th, 20:10), Emma Hayward (44th, 20:13) and senior Madeline Hooks (59th, 20:29). Rhodes, Dawson and Hayward all finished within three seconds of each other, with Rhodes beating Dawson by just three-tenths of a second. Crossing the finish line so close together, the girls racked up big points for the team. “We’ve been preaching to the girls all week about how important it is to get out in the first 1,000 meters,” Erba said. “I went over there with a count to kind of let them know where they were at. Allison Miller was at about 23rd, then a couple spots behind her was Brooke Rhodes, then Hanna, Emma Hayward and then there was Madeline Hooks and she was in about 35th-40th place. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. That’s more than I could have hoped for.’ They just stuck with it. They were hurting, but they hung on and competed all the way until the end of the race.” Warsaw sophomore Claire Kehler finished 107th (21:15) and senior Aletheia Burritt was 128th (21:38). In the last couple of years, Warsaw’s relied on the low score of the graduated Ashley Erba, who won state in 2011 and finished second last year. This season, that top-level runner is gone, but Erba knew he had enough talent to reach state again, the girls would just have to do it more as a team. “Coming into the season, we knew our strength would need to be, and would have to be, the girls running together,” he said. “They’ve really embraced that. I think this is one of the closest teams we’ve had, on and off the course. It’s always nice to get to state with someone running 17 minutes, but for our girls to come in that well, on a day like it was, was great.”
NEW PRAIRIE SEMISTATE Note – top 6 teams, as well as top 10 individuals not on advancing team qualify for state meet in Terre Haute Team Scores – 1. West Lafayette 32, 2. LaPorte 116, 3. Portage 126, 4. Warsaw 167, 5. Lake Central 179, 6. Twin Lakes 185, 7. New Prairie 194, 8. Valparaiso 196, 9. Hobart 239, 10. Crown Point 252, 11. Seeger 259, 12. Chesterton 293, 13. Harrison 326, 14. Munster 354, 15. Western 398, 16. Rochester 398, 17. Winamac 435, 18. Clinton Central 474, 19. Hebron 477 Top 10 – 1. Elena Lancioni (LaPorte) 18:11, 2. Lauren Johnson (West Lafayette) 18:17, 3. Kristen Johnson (West Lafayette) 18:26, 4. Delaney Barber (West Lafayette) 18:35, 5. Madeline Lilly (Twin Lakes) 18:35, 6. Taryn Thor (Northwestern) 18:41, 7. Rachel Thompson (New Prairie) 18:42, 8. Celena Guerrero (Hobart) 18:45, 9. Anna Bearss (Rochester) 19:02, 10. Olivia Johnson (Harrison) 19:09 Warsaw – 19. Allison Miller 19:32, 39. Brooke Rhodes 20:10, 40. Hannah Dawson 20:10, 44. Emma Hayward 20:13, 59. Madeline Hooks 20:29, 107. Claire Kehler 21:15, 128. Aletheia Burritt 21:38
