River View captures state title in boys cross county
WARSAW – River View’s junior high boys’ cross country team has had a magical season and it’s not over yet.
The boys won the ECOL on Oct. 15 in Cambridge and just won the state meet on Oct. 23 at Hilliard Bradley High School in Hilliard, which qualified them for the national meet in Evansville, Ind.
“After Oct. 15 the junior high season was officially over because going to state is voluntary,” said Coach Dennis Wilson. “We had a good group though and decided to take them to state.”
Fourteen of the team’s 24 runners were selected to run at the meet where they faced 147 runners from 12 different schools. River View, however, didn’t walk away with just fist place. They also had the first overall winner and four receive medals for finishing in the top 15.
Javin Robinson came in first, Reas Pepper was 11th, Austin Philabaum was 12th and Nathaniel Stamper was 14th. Just behind them was Brady Philabaum who placed 19th.
“This is pretty amazing,” Wilson said. “They had a really good season. We worked out from the beginning of July to the middle of October five days a week. It’s a lot of hard work, but this is a very coachable group. We also take them to some larger invitationals so they’ve been around races with a lot of kids on the line.”
This was Wilson’s first year coaching cross country and he gives a lot of credit to River View’s high school coach Gwenna Neal.
“She has really built this program up over the last eight years or so,” he said. “All the training and planning was her I just implemented it. This has been a really fun year and will be a hard act to follow.”
The national meet in Indiana will be held on Saturday, Nov. 19. The top three teams at the meet will receive trophies and the top 25 runners get medals.
“We will basically be bringing our varsity squad because I think you are only allowed to bring eight,” Wilson said. “I think we will be right up there.”
He also expects big things from the eighth graders next year when they move on to high school.
“They are going to have a strong freshman class,” Wilson said.
Category: High School, Sports