Cross country semi-state

The Rensselaer boys finished a disappointing 16th at the New Prairie Semi State meet this morning. Their times were much slower than they ran last weekend on the same course.

However, congratulations are in order for the girls from Tri-County. They finished sixth and qualify for the state meet along with Crown Point, Lake Central, Portage, Valparaiso, and Culver Academies.. The even managed to place ahead of the two teams that beat them at the regionals, Harrison and West Lafayette. And it was not close--they scored 186 points, while the seventh team, Munster, had 215.

If you have watched a bit of cross country, you should realize just how impressive Tri-County's sixth place finish is. In the past small schools sometimes may have made it to the state meet from the southern semi-state, which is the weakest in the state. But they did not from the New Prairie semistate. West Lafayette and Kankakee Valley are considered small schools in the sport of cross-country, but they are giants compared to Tri-County.

It would be interesting to know how many public schools as small as Tri-County have ever managed to qualify a team for the state meet.

Results can be found from here.

Indianrunner.com had predicted 8th place finishes for both teams.

Update: Tri-County caught a break. The number one runner for Chesterton did not wear her timing bracelet, so she was disqualified. If she had not been disqualified, Chesterton would have been sixth and Tri-County seventh.

Update 2: The Rensselaer Republican reported in its Monday edition that Tri-County missed a trip to state by finishing sixth. Their report is wrong. A few years ago only the top five teams went. But now the top six from each semi-state go. Last year the Kankakee Valley girls team made it to state by finishing sixth in the New Prairie semi-state and ended up 23 of 24 at the state meet. It will be interesting to see if Tri-County will do better. By the way, the lane assignments and rosters were up Monday. (They have to get the information in early to print the programs.) Tri-County has lane six. Check the IHSAA tournament site, linked above.

Update 3: From the Post Tribune:

If the Crown Point girls and Chesterton boys, who won by more than 80 points, were the dominant squad of the semistate, Tri-County could have been the feel good squad.

Approximately 125 girls from Remington, Wolcott and parts of Benton County make up the female enrollment of Tri-County High School. Six of them run cross country for the Cavaliers. After Saturday they will be representing their school at the state championship in Terre Haute on Saturday after finishing sixth at New Prairie.

"We knew we had an outside shot of making it," Tri-County coach Tony Salvadore said. "Everybody came to run today. These girls know how to run with the big dogs. And if you ask any one of the six, they'll all tell you they don't want cross country to ever go to a class system."

Tony Salvadore used to run for Tri-County, and I think he also ran for SJC.