On Saturday morning, 3 Brickie Harriers competed in the IHSAA SEMI-STATE for Cross Country hosted by New Prairie High School. For the Ladies, it was a pair of talented freshmen making their rookie appearance at Semistate ...
Cassie Cohen & Joanna Cantu. On the boys side, sophomore
Felix Lopez was making his 2nd CONSECUTIVE appearance. To advance to next week's STATE FINALS at LaVerne Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, they would need to place among the top 10 individuals not competing for an advancing team.
Girls
On an unusually warm Saturday morning in late October, the Lady Brickies were primed and ready to compete against the very best runners in northern Indiana! With 20 teams and 40 individual qualifiers competing, the field of 180 runners was STACKED, which made for an EXCITING race from start to finish! Cohen, who WON last week's Regional at Lemon Lake, joined Cantu on a mission to make it to Terre Haute! They were as cool as the other side of the pillow and ran like a CHAMPIONS!!
The top 10 individuals who qualified for state were all situated in the top 14 overall finishers ... which is incredible ... and made it very tough to advance. Joanna placed 125th overall in a respectable time of 22:21 and finished her campaign as one of the top 10 Lady Brickie freshman 5k runners ever and earned a spot on the ALL-NCC team! Cassie was 6th after the first mile ... 9th at the two-mile mark ... and was the 12th overall runner into the chute, which means she is STATE BOUND!! Her 12th place finish earned her one more week and a ticket to Terre Haute for the IHSAA STATE FINALS!!! So far this season, Cassie was the St. Joe Invite Champion, Hobart Invite Champion, Lowell Invite Champion, Highland Invite Champion, NCC Champion, Sectional Champion, and Regional Champion!! With her performance on Saturday, she became the 7th Brickie female in the 5k era ... and 9th female individual in school history ... to qualify for the State Finals!! She follows in the footsteps of Brickie legends Celena Guerrero and Christina Shaginaw qualifying as a freshman!
CONGRATULATIONS to Joanna on a fantastic season and to Cassie for her incredible run through the IHSAA post-season thus far ... with one more exciting race to go!!
Cassie will race at the LaVerne Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute next Saturday in the IHSAA STATE FINALS! Girls start at 12 ET. LET'S GOOOOOOO!!!!!
Boys
Lopez stepped up to the start line on Saturday with 174 other competitors sharing the same goals ... PR and advance! Through the first mile, Felix was in GREAT position within the pack of runners laying it on the line for a shot at state! The second mile ... which includes a sandy trail through the woods and "Agony Hill" ... pushed our him back a bit further into the pack. In spite of running his heart out over the last mile, it was just too much to overcome against the best runners in the northern part of the state. For the boys, the top 10 individuals qualifying for state all placed in the first 18 finishers - WOW!
Felix finished 47th overall ... an improvement of over 50 places from last season! He was also 9th among all freshman and sophomores competing!! AWESOME! Even though this brings an end to a terrific sophomore year for Felix, his performance on the state's 2nd largest stage should be both satisfying and motivating when thinking about what might be possible in the next 2 years!!
#PRIDEANDTRADITION
