By GREG KEIM
It just wouldn’t be fall without the Northridge High School girls cross country team winning the Northern Lakes Conference championship — even if it is shared.
The Raiders packed their five scoring runners among the Top Ten finishers, totaling 32 points to capture the title in the conference meet Saturday at Ox Bow County Park.
Warsaw went undefeated during the round robin portion of the schedule to claim a share of the title.
Warsaw was second on Saturday with 36 points, followed by NorthWood 124, Goshen 126, Concord 128, Elkhart Memorial 140, Wawasee 140 and Plymouth 166.
It’s the 19th time in the last 20 years Northridge has won the title outright or shared it.
The last time the Raiders shared the championship was in 1991 with Plymouth.
“With some of the injuries we have had, we are thankful to be sharing the title with Warsaw,” Northridge coach Ryan McClane said. “We told the girls that if we ran well and got beat by Warsaw that was OK. Warsaw is an excellent team.”
For Northridge, Allie Pladson was third (19:40), Skylair Hilton fourth (19:45), Autumn Elliott seventh (20:30), Jennifer Schrock eighth (20:38) and Madeline Royce 10th (20:44).
“The girls did not go out hard,” McClane said. “We are trying to make this a 5,000-meter run and not an 800 sprint. That has been our downfall this season. We tried this approach the last couple of weeks and it seems to be working.
“Someone had to step up for us and Royce was the one. She dropped abut 30 seconds off her best time.
“The rest of the season we are going to be working on getting more consistent and getting our fifth runner closer to our pack.”
Warsaw had an impressive showing with Ashley Erba first (19:00) and Cendall Ogle second (19:24).
“The good thing is we will be seeing Warsaw the rest of the tournament series,” McClane said. “At regional you throw Penn in the mix and at semistate you throw a lot of other teams in there.”
Scoring runners for Goshen were Juni Schirch 11th (20:46), Desiree Maran 12th (21:02), Meghan Neff 30th (22:32), Jessica Wynn 35th (23:00) and Addie Picking 38th (23:15).
“We were going after third place, but we ran a little flat,” Goshen coach Maggie Yoder said. “NorthWood has a strong team.
“Schirch and Maran ran well, but I would like our other three farther up. Schirch and Maran were running for all-conference so we will have to find some other incentive for next week.”
Cynthia Medina finished fifth (19:53) to lead NorthWood.
“With the injuries and illnesses we have had I was not expecting to get third place,”
NorthWood coach Brooke Tobias said. “Our fifth runner (Brittani Grove) we didn’t even know if she was going to run until right after warmups.”
