Franklin sophomore Lauren Klem hitting the finish line first during Saturday’s Johnson County cross country meet didn’t really come as a surprise to anybody.
The ease with which the Grizzly Cub girls won the team championship, though, caught some folks off guard.
Host Franklin placed five runners in the top 11 to easily outdistance Center Grove by a 30 to 55 margin.
“That was probably the most complete team race that we’ve run all season,” Franklin coach Ray Lane said. “We talk a lot about just getting out and giving ourselves a chance to compete with the people we need to compete with, and really from the gun we just got where we needed to be and then they just ran really confident from there.”
Franklin got a lift from freshmen Kathleen Lacy and Ainsley Botkin, who placed fourth and sixth overall. Juniors Amelia Tisdale (eighth) and Abby Demaree (11th) rounded out the Grizzly Cub scoring.
Klem got a push through the first two-thirds of the race from Indian Creek’s Abby Fleetwood, who wasn’t eligible to count toward the team scores. The Franklin standout pulled away late to win in 18:55, a full 31 seconds ahead of the runner-up, Whiteland’s Victoria Jackson.
“With (Fleetwood) being right behind me, I didn’t want to push it too early,” Klem said. “I was kind of waiting it out until the last second.”
Bella Hodges paced Center Grove with a third-place finish (19:32), while Elizabeth Madden was seventh. Third-place Whiteland was led by Jackson, Katia Olmstead (ninth) and Isabella Fuentes (10th).
Indian Creek’s Samuela Grosso was fifth individually.
On the boys side, Center Grove leaned on its depth to retain county supremacy, outdueling Whiteland by a narrow 51-58 margin. Franklin (73) and Greenwood (79) weren’t far behind.
The Trojans held out their top five runners, who competed in the Nike Valley Twilight Invitational Saturday evening in Terre Haute, but the rest of the team rose to the occasion.
Gavin Rockwell led Center Grove with a second-place showing (16:49), Chase Ennis was sixth and Levi Farmer 12th; the Trojans had eight of the top 20 finishers.
“It was neat to see the guys step up,” Center Grove coach Howard Harrell said. “There’s a couple of guys who don’t normally run varsity that got to run varsity today, and when they get that mentality that they really count, you can see the enthusiasm, and they were here and ready to run.”
The Warriors gave Center Grove a push but didn’t have quite enough depth to steal the team title. Senior Ashton Spoonamore, though, did take individual honors, crossing the line first in 16:39.
Michael Perkins was fifth for Whiteland, with Matthew Nino ninth.
“I liked the start,” Spoonamore said of his race. “I wish I went out a little bit faster; I feel like it’s an underrated strategy to go out super fast.”
Franklin was led by Daniel Stayte (seventh) and Ty Murphy (11th); Greenwood got a third-place finish from Conner Watson, while John Gries was eighth.
Caden Ringer was 10th to pace fifth-place Indian Creek. Greenwood Christian’s Owen Harder was fourth as an individual.
The meet helped the local runner set a tone for the postseason, which begins this coming Saturday on this same Franklin course.
“It’s great that we get to run here all these times in a row,” Spoonamore said, because we just get to get used to this course and understand what’s happening.”
Lane feels good about how some of his more inexperienced runners have matured over the course of the season.
“Our freshmen, they’ve just been getting more confident every week,” he said. “There’s some calmness there in their experience, and with the schedule we race, you get in these big meets, and they know how to respond — and we knocked one out of the park
