By RYAN WALKER
Bluffton, Norwell, and Southern Wells represented Wells County well at the boys cross country regional Saturday morning hosted by Indiana Wesleyan University. Bluffton finished in third place behind champion Wabash and Oak Hill, and Norwell placed fourth to qualify for the semi-state meet next week at the same venue.
Southern Wells finished in ninth place but made history as the first boys’ team to run at regionals since 2000.
Head coach Monica Edgeman thought the team didn’t run its best race but admitted that she was shocked at how close the scores were. Southern Wells scored a 183, sandwiched between three other schools that scored either two points higher or one point lower.
Edgeman’s Raiders will lose just two seniors, and being two points away from a near-qualifying performance, she’s confident in where the program is headed.
“We’re super excited,” she said. “We try not to put ourselves as the small school, but it’s obvious we are. To have 15 boys come out for our program was exciting. It was the biggest team we’ve ever had, and to have the best team we’ve had in 23 years is super exciting.”
“We look to be here again next year. I don’t have a doubt that we won’t be here next year,” she continued.
For individual finishers and times, Potter Garrett led the way in 27th at 17:33.7, Joshua Bricker in 44th at 18:03.8, Andrew Aker in 52nd at 18:13.8, Rio Horner in 53rd at 18:21.6, Jarin Frauhiger in 69th at 19:03.7, Colter Kiel in 76th at 19:27.7, and Kane Jenkins in 79th at 19:45.6.
The Bluffton boys’ team also earned a few milestones of their own.
According to head coach Michael Vanderkolk, this was the first time since 1969 that the Tigers qualified for the semi-state race in back-to-back seasons.
The achievement is fresh off of its first sectional championship in 24 seasons, and this week, Vanderkolk’s runners soaked it all in.
“This week, we celebrated the win from sectional because it’s been such a long time before, so we were really just focusing on the celebration,” he said. “We put so much pressure throughout the season on sectional, and the tone at practice leading up to sectional was very serious, and really just didn’t want to add even more stress.”
The season has been highlighted by Bluffton’s top four runners, Tyler Godwin, Jude Baumgartner, Sam Baumgartner, and Levi Johns, who all run at a similar pace and score the majority of the team score. The four all placed one through four at the Allen County Athletic Conference Invite at South Adams two weeks ago.
This week, Godwin joined elite company as he ran at a time of 16:54.2. He became the sixth runner in school history to finish under 17 minutes in a race, joining Bret Grover, Chris Brown, Tyler Oatess, Jared Reckard, and Kevin Moser.
The rest of the Tigers runners that helped the team have a 101 score were Jude Baumgartner in 15th at 17:11.3, Sam Baumgartner in 16th at 17:15.2, Levi Johns in 19th at 17:22.2, Brett Kuhlenbeck in 67th at 18:55.5, Ayden Teeple in 75th at 19:16.9, and Griffin Linderwell in 83rd at 20:24.0.
As for the Norwell Knights, their fourth-place finish and score of 121 were also good enough to move on to the semi-state meet, something that has been on their minds since the end of the 2021 season.
“They ran well,” head coach Cody Hannie said. “This was our goal all season was to make it out of regionals. I know they missed it by a couple points last year, so that’s been the motivation all week and all season.”
Perhaps the brightest spot for the Knights in the race was senior Zach Waldman. Waldman finished in third place, the highest out of all three Wells County schools, after shredding his time last week by nearly 12 seconds.
“He’s finally running to his potential,” Hannie said. “It’s awesome seeing him continue to get better every week and see him do what he’s been capable of for a long time. It’s been neat seeing him gain confidence every week and believe where he should be.”
Now that the season’s goal is complete, next week’s race will be an even bigger challenge for Norwell. So what does Norwell have to do to move on to a state championship?
“Run their butts off,” he said.
The rest of the Knights were led by Gavin Threewits in 30th at 17:41.4, Marin Melcher in 34th at 17:43.7, Landon Diver in 39th at 17:51.8, Lukas Mashuda in 48th at 18:11.7, Elijah Jacob in 56th at 18:23.6, and Robert Kwandrans in 65th at 18:43.5.
The semi-state race will start at 11:15 a.m. Saturday, Oct 22.
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