3 county CC squads, BC's Lockman earn semistate berths
October 17, 2011 12:29 AM
By ZACH SPICER
BEDFORD — Joe Trueblood, Taylor Royalty and Hope Lockman represented Jackson County well in Saturday’s Bedford North Lawrence Regional.
Trueblood, a senior member of the Seymour cross country team, won the boys race in 16:08, while Royalty, a Trinity Lutheran senior, jumped way ahead in the girls race and won in 19:02 and Lockman, a Brownstown Central senior, moved into second place and maintained, finishing in 20:16.
All three advance to this Saturday’s Brown County Semistate. The upside for Trueblood and Royalty is their teammates will be joining them, as the Seymour boys placed second with 66 points and the Trinity girls finished third with 90 points. The top five teams and individuals within the top 15 qualified for semistate.
The other county team advancing to semistate is the Seymour girls, as the Lady Owls claimed fifth place with 122 points. Neither Brownstown team qualified, with the girls placing seventh with 165 points and the boys finishing 10th with 239 points.
BNL won the boys meet with 24 points, and Salem was the girls champion, scoring 67 points, 10 ahead of second-place Silver Creek.
At recent big meets, Trueblood went out fast and held the lead before letting a few runners slip by. On Saturday, he went with a different strategy — and it worked.
“I didn’t take the lead until later in the race, and I feel like that helped and it gave me more confidence,” Trueblood said. “And when I took it today, I took it to win.”
Early on, Trueblood stayed near leader Jeremy Johnson of Austin.
“My goal was just to go out with him,” Trueblood said. “Around the 2-mile, I could tell he was dying, so I started talking to him. I told him Bedford was coming behind us and I needed him to go with me. (Soon after) I looked at him and he didn’t look good at all, so I decided to take the lead. Going back into the woods is when I really just decided to go without him.”
Winning as a senior was a big deal for Trueblood, and he finished with a season-best time.
“It feels amazing,” he said. “I crossed the finish line and I had a smile on my face. I liked it.”
Owls coach Randy Fife said Trueblood “ran the kind of race that he needs to run.”
“We thought if we’re going to run well, we’re just going to get up front. That’s how Joe runs,” Fife said. “He’s had some nice races doing that, and he’s going to have to do that next week at semistate with the field that is coming in with all of the talent and all of the front-runners.
“We decided to let him go again this meet, and it worked out,” Fife added. “That’s quite an accomplishment being a regional champion, so we’re proud of him for his effort.”
Fife brought the rest of his runners back for the first mile and had them go out a little slower. Jack Tormoehlen placed 15th, Ben Franke 17th, Luke Tormoehlen 20th and Ian Hensen 21st, finishing between 17:12 and 17:35.
“I think it worked well for some of them, I think especially for Ben Franke, who ran 17:22. That’s a good race for him. Probably a little slow for Ian and Luke and Jack,” Fife said. “Overall, a good day for us. I think it’s going to give us some confidence heading into next week.”
In the girls meet, it didn’t take long for Royalty to gain separation from Lockman and Salem’s Sydney Calhoun.
“We were pleased with that,” Lady Cougars coach Andy Royalty said of his daughter winning. “She was again just trying to focus on doing what she could to help the team advance, and that’s what we got out of her.”
Erika Horton was Trinity’s second finisher, placing 17th in 21:45, while Ally Posey was 29th, Danielle Shelley 31st and Brittaney VonDielingen 34th, finishing between 22:19 and 22:40.
“They all did a terrific job, but Allison Posey was the superstar of the day,” Royalty said. “Erika did a tremendous job, Brittaney and Danielle did what we expected out of them, but Posey was just the hero of the day for us, just completely happy with her. She went from being our seventh runner to finishing fifth at sectional and got third for us today, and she has just decided she’s come to race.”
Horton, a junior, was happy to see the team earn a trip to semistate for the second straight year.
“We all knew what we had to do, and we came out here and did what we had to do,” Horton said. “We’re all excited, and we’re happy we did what we did. We wanted to go to semistate, that was one of our main goals. And we would really like to go to state, but we’ll all have to push for that.”
Lockman posted a season-best time in earning her fourth straight trip to semistate. She passed Calhoun on the second lap and held onto her position.
“I do not like uneven numbers,” Lockman said. “I was in third place before I passed her, so I was either going to get second or fourth and I didn’t want to get fourth. I just kept thinking in my mind that I have to beat this girl. I’ve beat her the past three meets, so I had to beat her now. When I passed her, I’m like, ‘OK, I’ve got to keep this pace the whole time.’”
Lady Braves coach Dan Botkin said, “I wanted to see Hope get second. You know you can’t beat Royalty. We wanted (Lockman) to beat everybody else, and she did what she had to do. Brielle Schumpe ran her fastest time of the year, and she did a great job. Other than that, we just got beat.”
Zoey Johnson finished sixth in 21:02 to lead the Seymour girls, but the Lady Owls were without their No. 2 runner, Madison Hays. Alicia Pollert stepped up and finished 16th, while Mariah Lewis was 36th, Taylor Spivey 42nd and Alexis Beed 45th.
“We’ve talked all season that we’re a pretty deep team and we can pick up slack, and that’s what they did today,” Lady Owls coach Spencer Sunbury said. “Alicia had a great race. She wasn’t really happy with her race on Tuesday, and she came back and had a great race for us today. Mariah Lewis stepped up and ran a little stronger today, so it was just a matter of people stepping up and taking care of it.”
Pollert, a junior, was glad to see the team pull together.
“We’ve been running a lot more as a pack together,” Pollert said. “We had team bonding (Friday) night to get together, and we try to encourage everybody, build up the confidence and everything…It feels awesome to advance. It’s great and feels amazing.”
Brownstown boys coach Otha Smith felt senior Ellis Gallion had a chance of advancing to semistate as an individual, but Gallion finished 28th in 17:45, which was 37 seconds slower than Tuesday’s sectional when he placed seventh.
“He hurt his knee Tuesday and went ahead and ran and ran fairly well, but he’s been going to the doctor the last three days and I don’t know how much that had to do with it,” Smith said. “If he would have ran his sectional time, he would have gotten about 12th, and he wasn’t even anywhere close to that, so that was a real bummer.”
Brownstown’s second finisher was Ryan Franklin, placing 41st in 18:38.
The top five boys and girls teams from the BNL Regional along with the top five teams from the Brown County, Crawford County and Pike Central regionals will be at Saturday’s Brown County Semistate. It’s set to begin at 10:30 a.m. The top 15 individuals and top six teams will advance to the state finals.
Results: Bedford North Lawrence Regional At Bedford
Boys
Team scores: Bedford North Lawrence 24, Seymour 66, Jennings County 118, Silver Creek 120, Salem 154, Switzerland County 155, Madison 164, Jeffersonville 176, Eastern (Pekin) 196, Brownstown Central 239
Winner: Joe Trueblood (Sey) 16:08
Other Seymour: 15-Jack Tormoehlen 17:12, 17-Ben Franke 17:22, 20-Luke Tormoehlen 17:34, 21-Ian Hensen 17:35, 27-Raul Varela 17:44, 39-Ryan Emigh 18:27
Girls
Team scores: Salem 67, Silver Creek 77, Trinity Lutheran 90, Bedford North Lawrence 102, Seymour 122, Southwestern (Hanover) 164, Brownstown Central 165, Madison 180, Jennings County 190, Scottsburg 194
Winner: Taylor Royalty (TL) 19:02
Seymour: 6-Zoey Johnson 21:02, 16-Alicia Pollert 21:42, 36-Mariah Lewis 22:50, 42-Taylor Spivey 23:16, 45-Alexis Beed 23:18, 47-Maria Garcia 23:25, 51-Brianna Gillaspy 23:39
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