NASHVILLE — Seymour’s boys and girls cross-country teams didn’t get the results they wanted at Saturday’s Brown County Semistate, but they did not come away disappointed.
The Owls wrapped up their seasons with the girls finishing 13th and the boys taking 20th. The top six advanced to this week’s state finals in Terre Haute.
Columbus North’s top-ranked girls and fourth-ranked boys swept the team titles with 58 and 55 points, respectively. The Seymour girls finished with 381 points, 17 behind 12th-place Forest Park and six ahead of 14th-place Austin.
“We were hoping to be higher,” Seymour girls coach Spencer Sunbury said. “We thought we could be 11th. We had higher hopes for a better day, but it wasn’t for lack of effort. I’m happy with the way they competed, and I couldn’t have been more proud of them.”
Vivienne Siefker led the Owls with a 34th-place finish in 19 minutes, 48.1 seconds for 5,000 meters (3.1 miles). AnnMarie Shuler took 111th in 21:26.2, while Gracie Adams was 127th (21:55.5), Kinsley Folsom 133rd (22:10.4), Kelly Beavers 137th (22:18.4), Lyndsey Greenawalt 150th (22:49.1) and Grace Lewis 163rd (23:25.3).
“I felt bad for Vivienne,” Sunbury said. “She was close to making it (to state as an individual). But she’s going to be back, and we have four other runners from our top seven back.”
Seymour’s boys finished with 468 points, 45 behind 19th-place Jennings County.
Jude Bane finished 28th in 16:35.3 to lead the Owls. Micah Jablonski took 135th in 18:20.1, while Samuel Rockey was 142nd (18:25.6), Carter Murphy 149th (18:33.5), Kylan Ellerbe 156th (18:40.0), Wesley Proffer 163rd (18:58.1) and Ty Tormoehlen 166th (19:06.9).
“The day wasn’t good, but I liked the way we finished the season,” Seymour boys coach Randy Fife said. “Today wasn’t our finest day, but we weren’t disappointed with how the season ended. Two months ago, we weren’t sure we were going to make it to the semistate. We had geared ourselves up all last week to beat some teams (at the regional). I don’t think we were tired (Saturday), but maybe we were just mentally worn out after last week.”
Brownstown Central also had three individuals on its boys team qualify from semistate out of last week’s regional at Shelbyville.
Shane Ratliff led the Braves with a new personal best time of 17:15.2. His twin brother, Chance Ratliff, also had a PR of 17:18.7 as he was five places behind Shane.
Junior Brave Traven Wellman finished up his season with a time of 18:22.4.
“A great finish to a successful cross-country season,” Brownstown boys coach Derrick Koch said. “Congrats to Shane, Chance and Traven for making it to semistate. Proud of them.”