DHS boys, girls chase regional titles
By Kaitlin Clawson
Eagle's Eye staff writer
The cross
country teams ran past sectionals with second-place finishes. Josh Farmer led
the boys’ team with a third-place time of 16 minutes, 59 seconds. Irene McQueary
took first place for Delta with a fifth-place finish overall with a time of
20:51.
Delta advanced on to regional, which will take place this Saturday,
October 18 at 10 a.m. The girls' cross country team of Jami Carter, Irene
McQueary, Adriana Menefee, Heather Hague, Katie Scheidler, Alice Grasso and
Heidi Stewart will start at 10. The boys’ team of Josh Farmer, Tony Christman,
Adam Helfrich, Logan Rayl, Jeremy Pierce, Seth Moore and Seth Prince will start
after all the girl runners get in at approximately 10:30.
The race is at the Water Bowl in Muncie. For the boys’ team,
Southside and Yorktown will be their biggest competitions. Delta girls’ team
biggest competition will be Jay County and Pendleton. Delta cross country is
good competition for other schools.
“We’ve established our program, winning a sectional title and our
very first regional title last year. There are more kids coming out each year to
join cross country, too,” Delta’s lead runner Josh Farmer said.
Delta girls' cross country has been successful, too. “We’ve had a
pretty good tradition about having pretty good teams. We dedicate ourselves
really well in the off-season,” Delta girls coach Mr. Tom Devine said.
The cross country teams hope to advance to semi-state by placing in
the top five at regional. Since sectionals Delta has prepared for this
challenging regional competition. The girls’ team made off-season a big part of
training for the regional. After placing fourth last year in sectional, they
just wanted to get back on top and that’s just what they did and now they’re at
regional competing. The boys’ team has started tapering and slowing down
workouts so they’re more rested for the regional run.
The Delta boys’ team has two freshmen running on their regional
roster this year. Logan Rayl and Jeremy Pierce as freshmen will be running in
regional to hopefully help Delta in gaining that title.
“It’s good that freshmen are getting to run in regional to get
experience for later years,” Farmer said.
The boys’ team is losing three varsity seniors including number one
runner Josh Farmer, Tony Christman and Adam Helfrich. The girls’ team, however,
is losing five seniors including Carter, Menefee, Devine, Scheidler and Stewart
which are all running in Saturday's regional except for injured runner, Paige
Devine.
“Recruiting is the big game right now,” Coach Devine said.
Delta does have one advantage over other teams running in the
regional: the course is at the Water Bowl where Delta runs every home meet.
“The Water Bowl is our home course. There isn’t anything that I
dislike about it,” Delta boys’ coach Steve Wray said.
“We work hills a lot. It’s more of an advantage over other teams,”
Farmer said.
The only bad
part of having the regional at the Water Bowl is that there isn’t much room to
park.
“I love the Water Bowl. The course is very beautiful and has a nice
setting. It’s very spectator friendly. You can see the runners most of the
time,” Devine said.
Delta hopes
to claim another victory in cross country. After finishing cross country season,
recruitment is up next for the two cross country coaches, Wray and Devine.