JASPER – Saturday’s sectional at the Jasper Youth Sports Complex encapsulated in a nutshell just how dominant of a runner Maddie Graber has become.
Put it this way – Jasper won the girls team sectional rather easily with a score of 34, with the second-closest team score being Tell City’s 82. Yet, Graber, Southridge’s star senior runner, finished with a time of 19:21.70 to win the sectional race for the third year in a row, while the Wildcats occupied the second through fifth spots.
Jasper might’ve shown its depth to occupy the rest of the top five, but Graber’s time outpaced everyone else by at least 80 seconds, including Wildcats junior Molly Isaacs (20:42.10, 2nd), freshman Kate Kelly (20:46.80, 3rd), freshman Olivia Reckelhoff (20:47.40) and senior Andyn Lampert (20:47.60, 5th). It said a lot about Graber’s dominance at the individual level, as well as Jasper’s ability to run in packs and be deep enough to run away with the team sectional.
“Those girls from Jasper – Jasper’s at another level as well, and I think that just kind of shows Maddie’s at another level after that,” Raiders coach Chase Bland said. “To be in contention to try to go for an all-state spot, you have to be running those times.”
“I think it’s just my training and my coaches have supported me so much,” Graber said on running away from everybody else. “And I feel like I’ve been really consistent and I’ve worked very hard over the summer in order to achieve this – and hopefully, I can keep getting better as the season moves on.”
The Wildcats, meanwhile, still bagged their sixth-consecutive sectional championship – extending a program record on Saturday.
“Their attitudes have been phenomenal,” Jasper coach Tara Eckman said. “Fun is a bit of a trite word to use, but man, we’re having a whole lot of fun – and I think we’re proving that fun and running well are not mutually exclusive ideas. We’ve definitely had eyes on next week, since we started training June 9th, but they did what I asked them to do today from a race strategy standpoint to be at our best next week – and hopefully, we can go down there and take a big swing and advance out of regionals.”
Jasper’s the only county school to have advanced to the regional as a team Saturday, but all four county schools will have regional representation on the girls side, as it’s not just Graber who will compete for the Raiders, but also freshman Hadley Denu (23:05.70, 25th) and senior Maya Anderson (23:15.60, 27th). Forest Park senior Riley Hinson (21:04.80, 6th) and sophomore Kendal Gehlhausen (21:46, 12th) will represent the Rangers, and Northeast Dubois junior Chloe Betz (23:09.60, 26th) will represent the Jeeps.
“It’s a blessing to send her to regional,” Northeast Dubois coach Ben Gessner said of Betz. “She’s worked very hard to achieve that goal – so looking forward to seeing her go down there and see what we can make happen.”
“It’ll be huge for her just to be in the experience,” Bland said of Denu. “…And also to be able to see, have Maddie there as well – so she can see how Maddie approaches it, how Maya approaches it – because it’s nothing new for them; and that’s huge for Hadley to be there and then that’s huge for Hadley to be there just to learn off of them and to be that person next year – so whenever we have a lot of freshmen come in and hopefully, we can make it as a team then, and they can look to her for advice and how to approach the race.”
Rangers coach Chris Atkins wanted to send the girls to the regional as a team, but a previous injury to freshman Addi Evitts (26:10.50, 51st) changed the trajectory of their approach.
“With our one and two – Riley Hinson and Kendal Gehlhausen, they wanted to be near the front of the pack and get out early and just see how the race unfolds and then finish strong – which they both had really strong races,” Atkins said Sunday. “And then with Addi dealing with the injury, we had a more conservative plan – we weren’t 100% sure if she was going to be able to race when we arrived, but she wound up and thought she could make it.
“So, we had a more conservative plan with her – she gutted it out, raced hard,” Atkins continued. “And then with our four and five, (sophomores) Delainey Auffart and Kendall Fischer, we just wanted to make sure we were at a good place through the first mile and try to be competitive and try to pass people the last two-thirds of the race.
Seger wins boys race; all things must come to an end
Jaxon Seger’s accomplished season continued Saturday morning.
The freshman runner for the Jeeps, as well as a few others, didn’t exactly run away with the boys race, but Seger created separation along the way to win the sectional championship with a time of 16:11.10 – while senior Kyle Woehler of Jasper finished runner-up (16:28.90).
“I just opened up, controlled my breathing, really focused on my stride and I just went,” Seger said.
“(He had to) believe in himself that he had the ability to take the lead and go for it,” Gessner said of Seger. “He found the strength within him and made it happen.”
But it’s not just Seger alone who will represent the Jeep boys, since they’re going as a team – with a team score of 128 being good enough for fourth place.
“It took teamwork of all seven boys pushing each other – setting goals, believing in themselves and achieving them today,” Gessner said.
The Wildcats are also advancing to the regional, but failed to win the team sectional for the first time since 2018 – as their team score of 50 placed second to Barr-Reeve’s 34.
“That Barr-Reeve team was really, really good,” Jasper coach Adam Gilbert said. “I knew coming into it it was going to be a tough matchup there and our boys did a great job with what they were tasked to do – so very pleased with their outcomes. The boys ran really well, really excited for next week – we’re going to keep making that the peak of our season right there.”
And just like on the girls side, the boys will have representation from all four county schools. Forest Park senior Owen Troesch (18:53.90, 29th) and freshman Xavier Berg (19:27.80) made it out of the sectional, as did Southridge freshman Luke Ledbetter (19:36.20, 37th) and senior Jaxson Flamion (20:08.10, 46th).
“It’s really cool to see a senior and a freshman both go – and it’s cool for Luke to have the leadership of Jaxson there,” Bland said. “But yeah, I’m proud of both of them – Luke’s made huge leaps and bounds throughout the season and the sky’s the limit for him. He could get a lot better the next three years, so I hope this is kind of an eye-opening experience for him to see what his potential could be.”
“It’s always exciting when you have a freshman qualify for the regional meet,” Atkins said of Berg. “He was really excited about the sectional meet – I think he got out a little fast, think he was leading the race for part of it through the first 400 meters. But he kind of settled in and finished close to where we were thinking he could finish – so it’s exciting for him, his family. He’ll gain some good experience next week at the regional championship that he can come back to the rest of his three years at Forest Park.:
Looking ahead to the regional and goals
The regional is scheduled for Oct. 25 at Angel Mounds, with goals abundant for certain teams and runners – though the degree will vary on how much local representation there is this year at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute.
The Wildcat girls made it to state last year, as did Graber and Hinson as individuals, while Jasper sent a couple of boys runners last year in the graduated Max Kline and also Calvin Seitz, who’s now a junior at Springs Valley.
“It’s good to see Kyle up there in the mix still,” Gilbert said. “And then (sophomore Trevan Vogler’s) starting to be in the talks there – so those two boys are really going to make a run for it, and I think they have a chance.”
“(We’ll) set some PR goals,” Gessner said. “Hopefully, we can just keep them fresh to achieve them, talk to the kids on Monday, see if they have any specifics and we are just going to go in this week with positive attitudes and make something good happen this weekend.”
“Obviously, Maddie’s going to compete for the win,” Bland said. “But for Maya and Hadley – for them, it’s really just going to be to enjoy it – the culmination of the year in all the training and everything. Obviously, we want to go there and run well, but at the end of the day, for them, it’s like, ‘Let’s have fun, let’s soak in the experience and learn some things,’ for Hadley and for Maya, this is probably it – so let’s just kind of enjoy it and realize all four years of hard work you’ve put in and enjoy the experience.”
“Across the board, we just want to put ourself in position to run as well as we can – lower our PRs and then when that gun goes off on Saturday, make sure that we’re competing as hard as we can,” Atkins said. “So, we haven’t really talked about any goals yet – we’ll meet tomorrow and talk about those. I’ll have a better idea after I look at all the sectional results to kind of give them the ballpark number where they’re hypothetically supposed to finish, and we’ll set some goals from there.”
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