Last Saturday, October 10, the Chesterton High School Boys and Girls Cross Country teams competed in the New Prairie Sectional meet, and performed spectacularly. For the first time in our school’s history, both the Boys and Girls won the Sectional Championship in the same season.  The girls defeated second place Valparaiso by just 8 points (57-65), and the boys won handily over Valpo 25 to 69. Not only is this the very first time the teams have won sectional titles together in the same year, but also the win marks the first win for the girls team since 1998.  

     “Winning sectionals was a very emotional accomplishment for my team and I. Not all of us had a great race, but we got the job done! Coming off from DAC Championship win prior, we were hungry to accomplish more,” junior Bailey Ranta stated.

     Both teams had runners placing in the top ten, with the boys placing all five scored runners in that top ten. For the girls, Ranta finished third with a time of 19:11, junior Bree Gentry finished eighth (20:16), while junior Catherine White finished tenth (20:28). On the boys side, senior Matthew Streeter finished second with a time of 16:56, Jackson Tuck (17:01) finished fourth, Cole Dolson (17:01) in fifth, Evan O’Connor (17:03) crossed sixth, and Josh Dennington (17:07) rounded out the scoring for the Trojans with an eighth place finish.

     The Trojans look to continue their success, when they will compete for a regional title this Saturday, October 16, at Sunset Hill Farm in Chesterton. 

     “We still have more goals to accomplish this season, but we are off to a great start! We can’t wait to show the rest of the Chesterton community.” Ranta concluded.