Published: October 18, 2009 12:56 am      

CROSS COUNTRY: Dragons moving on to semistate

Silver Creek will send both its boys’ and girls’ cross country teams to next weekend’s semistate race at Brown County.

The Dragon girls finished fourth overall, while the boys’ team placed fifth at Saturday’s Bedford North Lawrence Regional.

On the girls’ side, Olivia Horvath’s sixth-place effort helped the Dragons score 120 points, comfortably securing a spot in the semistate round.

“We came into today hoping that we could finish fifth,” said Silver Creek coach Al Eckert. “Coming out of here with a fourth-place finish obviously is something that we can all be very proud of.

“We were a little nervous. We ran without our No. 4 runner (Emily Clayton) today. But all that meant is our No. 5 and 6 had to step up and that’s exactly what they did.”

Chelsea Shrader added a top-15 effort for the Dragons, while their top five was rounded out by Emily Warren (25th) and Rachel Clemons (37th).

“As young a team as we had coming into this season, we weren’t sure that making semistate as a team was something that would happen for us,” said Eckert. “Olivia ran great. Coming back from an injury late in the year, we weren’t sure how she would hold up running three days after sectional, but she did a tremendous job.”

Following up her sectional victory on Tuesday, Jeffersonville’s Connie Chan set a new school record as she placed third overall, finishing the 5-kilometer race in a time of 20:35.

While teammate Jessica Mosqueda will join Chan at semistate after placing 12th in the individual standings, Jeff fell short of advancing as team due to a tiebreaker.

The Red Devils scored 133 points to tie Brownstown for fifth in the standings. But the team will not advance because the Braves had a better finish by their No. 6 runner. Jeff ran with only five team members on Saturday due to illness.

“We ran well enough to make it, but it was not to be,” said Jeff coach Tom Kendall.

Carly Inman placed 33rd for Jeff, teammate Ellie Delap was 39th and the Red Devils’ Tara Willenborg placed 50th.

On the boys’ side, Creek placed two runners in the top 15 and grabbed the last advancing spot in the team standings.

Silver Creek’s Aaron Beck, who won the Southwestern Sectional on Tuesday, was fifth overall and teammate Jack Eckert placed 12th for the Dragons — who got a 32nd-place finish from Evan Strom, 34th-place run by Jason Fruits and 36th-place effort from Drew Roberts.

“They guys gutted it out and ran a real smart race,” said Eckert. “Aaron and Jack led the charge. But the guys behind them all battled and may have outran what the expectations were for them.”