By RYAN WALKER
The boys’ cross country sectional at Bellmont High School was dominated by Wells County Saturday morning, with the Bluffton Tigers winning the race and Norwell trailing right behind them in second.
The first-place finish was Bluffton’s first in 24 years.
“It just means so much, and it’s just brought a lot of excitement for the school,” head coach for the Tigers, Michael Vanderkolk, said after the race. “These guys have put so much work getting better each and every day. “
The Tigers are no strangers to winning weekend races. In fact, they haven’t finished below first over its last five meets, including the sectional and conference championship.
But this time around, the Tigers knew they would need their best race from the top five runners to beat out schools like Norwell, who’s beaten them in previous races.
The top four runners for Vanderkolk were easy to pencil in as they are some of the best in the area.
However the fifth was the question mark he gave his team as a wide-open opportunity to get to where they needed to be by the end of the season.
That fifth runner on Saturday turned out to be Brett Kuhlenbeck.
“We can talk about the front four all we want, but we don’t win this meet without Brent Kuhlenbeck,” Vanderkolk said.
At the Allen County Athletic Conference meet a week before, Tyler Godwin, Jude Baumgartner, Sam Baumgartner, and Levi Johns placed an astonishing first through fourth place. Kuhlenbeck placed 24th with a time of 19:28.6, which is where they needed him.
Kuhlenbeck, during the track season last year, was asked to run a different event at the last second, too, and delivered, according to Vanderkolk. So it wasn’t the first time they’ve asked him to step into a significant role.
He then delivered again in the sectional meet.
“We knew he had the biggest amount of point potential to pick up today, and he exceeded his expectations. We were hoping to catch a couple of people, and he caught like 12,” Vanderkolk laughed.
Kuhlenbeck’s time at the ACAC meet was shaved down to 18:26.7 — more than a full minute.
“He responds when it matters,” he said.
The Tigers had a team score of 67 from their top five runners. The times for the team at the sectional were led by Tyler Godwin in fifth place at 17:06.3, eighth Jude Baumgartner at 17:18.5, ninth Sam Baumgartner at 17:19.3, 10th Levi Johns at 17:20.5, 35th Brett Kuhlenbeck at 18:26, 54th Ayden Teeple at 19:25.7, and 69th Griffin Linderwell at 20:45.3.
For Norwell, the second-place finish was impressive, with a team score of 88.
“Guys did well,” head coach Cody Hannie said. “I think everybody PR’d, so that’s what you ask for, so (we’re) just looking forward to running at regionals and hopefully advancing.”
Despite finishing second in the sectional, the Knights had the goal of winning the event and had a little disappointment — mixed with hats off to Bluffton.
“We knew what we had to do to win and came up short. But Bluffton came in huge,” Hannie said. “They wanted it more this week. We’ve got next week to show what we got.”
Norwell’s times and scores were led by Zach Waldman in second at 16:37.5, 16th Gavin Threewits at 17:47.0, 21st Marin Melcher at 17:59.7, 22nd Landon Diver at 18:00.1, 27th Elijah Jacob at 18:06.9, 33rd Lukas Mashuda at 18:17.2, and 36th Robert Kwandrans at 18:27.0.
The regional meet will take place at Indiana Wesleyan University at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 15, with the girls’ race starting first.
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