Warsaw Wins Boys, Girls XC Regional TitlesCULVER – Warsaw’s Jacob Kissling and Wini Barnett won their respective 5K race in Saturday’s cross country regional at Culver Academies.
Their individual victories led the Tigers and Lady Tigers to team titles as well.
Kissling, a junior, won the sectional the week before and backed it up by claiming the regional in a time of 16:34.
The Tigers, who won their eighth straight regional team title and the program’s ninth overall, had three runners finish in the top four and saw all five scoring runners finish in the top 15, as they ended the day with 31 points.
Culver Academies was a distant second with 83 points, followed in the boys team standings by Plymouth (84), Western (120), Rochester (148), Winamac (156), Manchester (157), Logansport (195), Eastern (223) and Cass (233).
The top five teams, as well as the top 10 individuals not on an advancing team, qualified for the New Prairie Semistate.
On the girls side, Barnett, a sophomore, won in a time of 19:05.
The Lady Tigers placed all five scoring runners in the top 17 and concluded the event with 49 team points.
Culver Academies finished second in the girls team standings with 75 points, followed by Rochester (93), Manchester (134), Maconaquah (143), Western (161), Plymouth (173), Logansport (183), Carroll (Flora, 189) and Cass (209).
The title was the seventh consecutive at the regional level for the Lady Tigers and the eighth overall in program history.
Other scoring runners for Warsaw’s boys team included junior Sam Lechlitner (3rd), junior Tanner Stiver (4th), senior Austin Fleming (8th) and sophomore Lukas Nier (15th).
Sophomore Harrison Phipps (18th) and senior Fernando (Niebbia) rounded out the Tigers’ seven-man lineup.
Three local boys advanced to the semistate as individuals: Manchester junior Carter Bedke (7th), Tippecanoe Valley junior Matthew Howes (17th) and Triton senior Russell Reichard (28th).
Sophomore Ava Knight finished sixth for the Lady Tigers, while teammates Erika Bugg, Amanda Lusinde, Adree Beckham and Mikayla Mimnaugh finished 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th, respectively.
Senior Hanna Bloemendaal rounded out Warsaw’s girls lineup with a 49th-place finish.
Freshman Josie Briner led Manchester’s fourth-place team effort by finishing 11th in a time of 20:2. Teammates Kambree Cashdoller and Hallie Briner crossed the line in 19th and 20, respectively.
