It was another exciting day in cross country for Valpo. Both boys and girls teams won Sectionals!
Chesterton hosted the Sectional races at Sunset Hill Farm.Valpo will advance to Regionals along with the top 5 teams from each race.
Coach Boomer Nellessen of the Valparaiso girls team stated, “It was a good day for us, we got the win. We like the idea that the girls are advancing and if you can’t win then the goal is to advance. We are a young team and they are excited about continuing on and advancing.”
Girls teams advancing on to Regionals along with Valpo (51) are Chesterton (69), New Prairie (77), Portage (95) and La Porte (103).
Elena Lancioni of La Porte won the girls race with a time of 18:43.
Top 10 include:
2 Rachel Thompson - New Prairie 18:54
3 Kyleigh Werner - South Central 19:07
4 Alison Mundell - Valparaiso 19:21
5 Kyra Ball – Portage 19:25
6 Hannah Hoffman – Chesterton 19:37
7 Mary McBride – New Prairie 19:39
8 Kelly O’Shea - Wheeler 19:47
9 Aurora Bonner – Valparaiso 19:49
10 Paige Pizer – Portage 19:53
The boys teams advancing are Valparaiso (24), Portage (88), Wheeler (103), Chesterton (103) and La Porte (108).
Winning the boys’ race was Peyton Reed with a time of 15:35. Reed was excited about the win but happier for his team.
He said, “Coach told us to run as a pack for the first 2 miles and then go out the last mile; because of my DAC race I wanted to go out and I did. I went all out the last mile and did it. Our team did great too. Taylor [Bisacchi] got 3rd and Ari [Coulopoulos] got 5th. We also had our guys place 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th All of us placing in the top 10.”
Boys coach Aaron Crague told the team, “It was a good execution.” He later spoke about the victory saying, “The team ran really well today. We took time before the start of the race to emphasize that we do not want to get away from what was getting us here and that is running as a team, as a pack, as a group. Last year post season the guys kind of forgot that. If we emphasize what it was that got us here then the sky’s the limit and that is going to help us be at our best.”
Top 10 include:
2 Anthony Didion – La Porte 15:47
3 Taylor Bisacchi –Valparaiso 15:50
4 Nickolas Arndt – New Prairie 16:01
5 Ari coulopoulos – Valparaiso 16:04
6 Joel O’Shea – Wheeler 16:10
7 Landon Davison – Valparaiso 16:16
8 Andrew Lyp – Valparaiso 16:17
9 Xavier Reed – Valparaiso 16:20
10 Pat Dalton – Valparaiso 16:23