Shelbyville High School

In a thrilling show of teamwork, heart and determination, the lady bears cross country team pulled off an upset to finish 5th as a team and qualify for Regionals! Originally seeded 7th going into Sectionals, the ladies surpassed both HLC-opponent Greenwood Community (who previously beat them by 1 point at the HLC meet several weeks ago) by 3 points and also 5th ranked Perry Meridian by 8 points. The bears' team score was 147. While it was certainly a team effort for the ladies, our forerunners really commanded the lead with 2 extremely strong performances. MVP accolades belong to both American Leon, who finished 12th place overall (seeded 15th going in) with a new PR of 20:10, and Macey Robbins, who finished 16th overall (originally seeded 21st) with a big time drop of her own, 20:26. The rest of the qualifying lady bears also ran very strong performances, close to season bests: 38.Harper Kinsey, 22:57 44. Kat Seal, 23:48 46. Anne Marie Fansler, 24:08 53. Belle Orem, 24:58 56. Claire Kamplain, 25:05 On the boys' side, Shia Veach had another very strong performance. The top boys group started off at a blistering clip, but Shia pushed his way through to a 6th place overall finish in a time of 16:14. Sophomore Eden Ortega had a huge day, finishing 25th overall in 17:26 - a 17 second PR. Eden finished 44 positions higher and over 2 and a half minutes faster than he did at Sectionals last year. Shia was the first individual on a non-qualifying team to advance to Regionals next week, and Eden was the 6th individual (of 15) to also punch his ticket. The boys team was down a couple of varsity runners, unfortunately, but some of the younger boys really stepped up to the plate with PRs. The boys finished 9th overall (16 schools in contest). The rest of the team finished as follows: 60. Anderson Mollenkopf, 19:43 64. Elliot Wung, 20:03 (*PR) 67. Tanner Jones, 20:29 (*PR) 69. James Melvin, 20:32 (*PR) 74. Jackson Garrett, 20:58 (*PR) Our Regional Qualifiers will race at Ceraland Park in Columbus, next Saturday, 10/24, hosted again by Franklin Community. Girls race at 10:30, boys race at 11:15. 25 teams and 75 individuals advance to each regional. The top 5 teams and top 15 individuals on a non-qualifying team will advance to State. Shia Veach is currently ranked 24th overall in our boys' Regional.