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Cougars sweep all four Putnam County Cross Country Meet races
North Putnam claimed near total dominance of Saturday’s Putnam County Cross Country Meet, winning all four team races and two of the four individual county titles.
Greencastle’s Landon Miller (17:18) and Colleen Bossnack (22:27) won the high school races and were the only things keeping the Cougars from a complete sweep of the course at South Putnam.
North Putnam won the boys’ high school title 34-46 over South Putnam, the girls’ high school title 23-49 over Greencastle, the boys’ middle school title 19-38 and the girls’ middle school title 17-52 over the Eagles.
“I’m proud of how our kids competed in both races and even the middle school races,” North Putnam head coach Kevin Lutes said. “We've talked a lot about keeping focus on what can be controlled and just rolling with the rest.
“They absolutely did that today.”
Jeremiah Miles paced the Cougar boys in the high school race, finishing third in 17:56 and was joined in the All-County ranks by Elijah Harless (18:20) in fourth and Corbin Conner (19:29) in sixth. Thomas Nelson (20:27.4) edged Kaleb Walton (20:27.9) for 10th place to round out the team score and was followed in by Edrien Sobrino-Behler (20:31), Owen O’Hair (20:51), Zane Eakle (21:30), Conner Dutcher (21:55), Atticus South (22:42) and Adam Grajewski (24:39).
“Jeremiah really understands his role, especially this year, and has shown an incredible amount of growth,” Lutes said about the senior runner. “He knew Landon and Gabe were going to be tough, but he hung with them for a lot of the race. Those other two just had better races today. I'm just thankful for his maturity this year.
“Everyone else followed suit. Kaleb had a great race today especially. With him coming in with Thomas and Edrien as a pack in front of South's fourth runner, it really sealed things for us, but you never know with South’s kids.
“They are always competitive and well-coached but things just went our way today,” Lutes added.
South Putnam finished second, paced by a second-place finish from Gabe Feltner (17:40), who was joined in the All-County places by Landon Chew (18:48) in fifth.
Noah Couch (20:16) finished eighth with Isaac Boyce (20:50) 14th and Bryan Bye (21:02) 17th to round out the team score, followed by Gunner Roach (22:00) and Paxton Church (22:06).
“The boys ran about what we expected,” South Putnam head coach Brandon Welti said. “Gabe made it an interesting race up front and finished second again; Landon ran a strong race to get top five.
“Noah was really close to sneaking into the top seven and I think this was one of his most competitive races. He really went out hard and battled the entire time. Overall, it was a decent day of racing.”
Cloverdale finished third in the boys’ race, led by All-County runner Jayden Armstrong-Diggs (20:16) in seventh place. Evan Barnett (20:20) finished ninth with Mason Paauwe (21:01) finishing 16th, Spencer Nees (21:48) finishing 19th and Joseph Patton (24:24) finishing 25th, followed by Bradyn Schabel (24:55).
Behind Miller for the fourth-place Tiger Cubs was Caleb Edwards (20:49) in 13th, Wilson Hecko (22:30) in 23rd, Jackson Corey (29:35) in 28th and Cavin Colwell (30:58) in 29th place.
“Our kids went out and raced well today,” Cloverdale head coach Aleksey Stewart said. “We've been working on staying competitive in the second half of races and I saw more of that today.
“We're started to get some guys back that have been battling nagging injuries, so we're really looking forward to competing these last few weeks leading up to conference and sectionals.”
Jacy Huffman (23:48) led five Cougars in the All-County places in the high school girls’ race, finishing runner-up in the race, with Barbi Fuchs (24:20) third, Brooke Hensley (26:17) fifth, Erica Zatorski (27:39) sixth and Kaylee Hoover (27:59) seventh. Sienna Williams (34:52) finished 16th overall.
“The girls came out with purpose,” Lutes said. “They set themselves up early on and were just solid the whole time and I'm extremely happy for them.”
The Tiger Cubs finished second as Bossnack was backed by Adelynn Moore (28:30) who finished eighth, followed by Eliana Dinn (28:45) in ninth, Charlotte Hall (34:27) in 15th and Anastasia Graham (41:44) in 18th.
Elise Kendall (25:37) finished fourth overall for the Eagles, who finished third, with Delaney Fugate (28:5) finishing 10th, starting a run of runners with Joslyn Bumgardner (29:10), Addalyn Brinkman (32:12) and Molly Trammell (32:41) finishing in places 11-13. July Owen (37:30) finishing in 17th place.
“There weren't any surprises on the girls' side of the race,” Welti said. “We were glad to have Laney back and ready to race again and (Joslyn) did a good job of staying close to her.
“Addie ran a really good race and looked strong from start to finish. Elise ran a top-five race to earn All-County, which was expected. All in all, they ran well and finished where we kind of expected.”
Cloverdale’s sole runner, Haley Patton (33:14), finished in 14th place.
Isaac Chew (11:55) led a 1-2-3 finish for North Putnam in the middle school boys’ race, followed by Carson Chew (12:09) and Marshall Wireman (12:13). Harrison Young (12:21) made it four All-County finishers for the team with Eli Hreno (12:45) and Mason Franklin (12:47) finishing eighth and ninth.
Other finishers for the Cougars included Daniel Grajewski (15:32), Logan Fowler (15:43), Kaiden Sobrino (16:15), Jensyn Martin (16:16) and Landon Persinger (21:41).
South Putnam’s Peyton Carr (12:14) broke up the North Putnam bloc at the top, finishing fourth, with Dominic Pierce (12:37) and Braydyn Vansickle (12:42) finishing sixth and seventh to join Carr in the All-County team for the second-place Eagles.
Ezekiel Callahan-Gallegos (12:48) and Caleb Mahlan (12:53) finished 10th and 11th to round out the team score and were followed by Kai Knight (13:27), Lincoln O’Rourke (14:54), Peyton Webster (14:55), Dalen Church (17:16), Graham O’Rourke (18:01), Zayvin Partin (18:56), Riley Neely (18:59) and Nolan Dickson (22:36).
Cloverdale was a runner short of a complete team and was paced by Jeremiah Armstrong-Diggs (13:06) in 12th place, followed in by Alex Hutton (14:59), Zeke Frye (15:27) and Eric Perry (17:13).
Greencastle had three runners, paced by Braylon Batta (14:22) and Cayden Singley (14:41) in 14th and 15th place, followed by Liam Tesmer (29:51).
North Putnam had six of the top-eight runners in the girls’ middle school race with a 1-2-3-4 finish led by Chanlie Busch (12:40), Brooklyn Sutherlin (13:30), Natalynn Franklin (13:42) and Natalia Grajewski (14:41) with Rowan Moore (16:18) finishing seventh and Payton Cabe (16:23) finishing eighth.
South Putnam had two All-County runners in Gabriel Browning (15:48) and Addison Thomas (16:06) who finished fifth and sixth respectively. Julia Bumgardner (16:35) and Arianna Curran (17:39) rounded out the top-10 in ninth and 10th place.
Other finishers included Maddison Seay (18:36), Emylia Hardy (18:55), Ashlyn Gardner (19:25), Ema Rounds (20:26) and Braelynn Smith (22:10).
Cloverdale was a runner short of fielding a full team and was led by Adryana Oberkrom (17:55) in 11th place, followed by Addison Mustaine (18:43), Ava Patton (22:43) and Alexis Harris (22:45).
Greencastle’s sole runner, Addi Jones (19:10), finished in 15th place.
