Tippecanoe JH Boys Stampede Over Competition

As usual, Tippecanoe’s Junior High boys cross country team took home the hardware at the Centerville Stampede on Saturday, October 4th. Some spectators expected a close race between Tipp and Centerville Watts, who Tipp only beat by 10 points at the Alliance Invitational, but Tipp easily won with 36 points to Centerville’s 74. Their win over a 21 team field which included all divisions kept their undefeated season alive as they head into their final race of the season, the Central Buckeye Conference Championships in Ben Logan.

Saturday’s race was by far the team’s best performance of the season as Tipp’s top 6 runners all ran under 12 minutes. Sam Wharton ran 10:52 to win the race, breaking the 11 minute barrier for the first time this season. He trailed Centerville’s top runner for most of the first mile, but pushed through the second mile of the race like he was being chased by a stampede of elks. Unlike last weekend where he was out-kicked in the final stretch at the Miami County race, Sam was the one doing the kicking, pulling out the win by 2 seconds. Teammate Ricky Andrews just missed breaking 11 minutes, finishing third overall with a time of 11:00. Grant Koch finished 8th with a time of 11:31. Nick Noone finished 12th with a time of 11:38. Tyler Prentice finished 14th with a time of 11:42. Michael Landwehr finished 20th with a time of 11:52, and Jay Schairbaum finished 45th with a time of 12:29. 168 runners competed in the race.

To put this magical season into perspective, Jason Salyer, Tipp’s top high school runner on the top ranked team in the state for Division II, ran a personal best time of 11:30 in junior high. Both Sam and Ricky have been running consistently below that mark all season and Grant has ran around the mark several times this season as well. Tipp’s 2004 junior high team who won the CBC title and included several of the current varsity high school runners had 2 runners under 12. Tipp’s current junior high team, who will try to defend their CBC title next week in Ben Logan, has 6.