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Harrison wins individual sectional title; Lady Knights finish second
Crunching the numbers during the days leading into Saturday’s Terre Haute North Sectional meet, Northview girls cross country head coach Jeff Walker figured it would be a battle for the top spot between his Knights and Terre Haute South.
Whichever wave – either from red or maroon – came across the finish line together first would likely be the winner.
And unfortunately for Northview, a quartet of Braves took spots No. 5, 6, 7 and 9, which proved to be the deciding factor in Terre Haute South (41) ending Northview’s (50) streak of consecutive sectional championships at five.
“This is what we were pretty much expecting,” said Walker. “We knew South was probably deeper than us and they would have a pack right there in the middle. We knew we had to break up the pack or we’d be looking at a second-place finish … We’re still excited about what happened out there for us today.”
But for the third time in the last four years, a Lady Knight was crowned as the individual sectional champion as Hannah Harrison, who got out to an early lead which had the Northview coaching staff concerned about her ability to carry the same pace for the rest of the race, finished first with a time of 19:27, beating the second-place finisher by over one minute.
“My coaches told me to go out and run a 4-flat. I, obviously, didn’t do that. I ran a 3:30. When I saw that, all I was thinking was, ‘What are they going to say to me?’ I knew they weren’t going to be mad, but I also knew they didn’t want me to go out that hard,” said Harrison. “I kept it up and [pulled] away, so I wanted to keep going and see what I could do on my own because I knew if I could break 20 minutes here, I would be setting myself up for a perfect opportunity to break 19 minutes at Brownsburg which would give me a good chance of accomplishing my goal of making it to state.”
“I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried at the one-mile mark when she was under six minutes. I was like, ‘Eh, ok. We’ll see. Let’s just be positive about it.’ Of course, she slowed down a little bit, but it wasn’t much. She held her form, which was impressive, especially out there on your own,” said Walker of Harrison. “She’s going to have to go out fast again next week, so it was kind of like a preview of what she’s going to have to do at Brownsburg.”
Harrison joins former teammates Ellia Hayes and Gnister Grant as individual sectional champions in the last four years, an accomplishment she’s honored to be a part of, especially because of the way she ran on Saturday.
“It’s really surreal,” said Harrison after being informed of the Northview company she joined on Saturday. “I didn’t run much my freshman year because I was hurt, so I viewed last year as a rebuilding year. I wasn’t very confident. It was really hard being injured and I didn’t want that to happen again. So, I’ve worked really hard to [overcome that], and now joining Ellia and Gnister, this accomplishment is huge. It’s also cool that I won it with a big lead just like they did.”
Behind Harrison was Josie Lynch, who finished third with a time of 20:43 in her postseason debut, and Aubrey Miller, who finished 12th with a time of 21:46.
The pair of upperclassmen have had interesting roads to the sectional race as Lynch’s emergence came out of nowhere and lifted the team to another level while Miller has fought back from an injury that kept her away from the course for most of the season.
“She’s getting back to where she was, which looks great for the track season. We’re looking for her to have a lot of success again there,” said Walker of Miller.
Northview rounded out its morning with Leah Nevill (15th with a time of 22:06), Cora Frederick (24th with a time of 23:06) and Kaleigh Alexander (27th with a time of 23:27). The Knights will now turn their attention to next weekend’s Brownsburg Regional where the odds of advancing onto the state championship are slim, but Walker is hopeful one or two individuals could still qualify for the biggest race of the year with strong performances.
“Next week as a team, it’s virtually impossible to get to state, but we have a great shot with Hannah, and we have an outside shot with Josie if she can just put a great race together. We’re excited about that,” said Walker.