Few high school cross country courses in the state of Indiana have a reputation like the one at New Prairie. The Bellmont Braves made their long, annual trip to the northwest corner of Indiana and came home with a couple of big individual performances and a 12th-place team finish.
“We were just 12 points away from tenth out of 30 teams,” noted head coach Randy Hisner. “With three freshmen, three sophomores and one junior in our top seven, finishing close to the top third is not too bad.”
Freshman Hudson Krull (18:24) beat out sophomore Hayden Whittenbarger (18:27) for top honors for the Braves.
“Considering the difficulty of the course, we had a pretty decent day overall,” said Hisner.
Hisner praised the will and fortitude of Krull, who was not feeling his best during the race, but still held on for top team honors.
“That was a veteran-like performance under tough circumstances. He’s a great competitor!”
Hisner also noted that Whittenbarger ran the best race of his career.
“He continues to reap the benefits of his dedicated, consistent training. He cut six seconds from his career best, even though the New Prairie course is one of the most challenging around, with a humongous hill at about the halfway point. His time was also a whopping 3:25 faster than he ran last year in the same meet. His 18:27 was second-best on the team Saturday, just three seconds behind Hudson.”
Freshman Owen Adams cut an incredible 32 seconds from his previous best to nab a top seven varsity spot for the first time.
“Very impressive performance! He ran 20:12 and seems poised to run sub-20 very soon.”
Other times for Bellmont:
Harry Gunsett 18:34
Maddux Miller 18:46
Landon Rich 19:33
Logan Whitacre 20:06
Owen Adams 20:12
Caleb Adams 20:26
Cayden Rauch 20:47
Cole Sipe 22:47
