Bulldogs win seventh sectional title

By Fred Kroner

Mahomet-Seymour’s state-ranked Bulldogs were the dominant team in the Saturday (Oct. 30) Decatur IHSA Class 2A boys’ cross-country sectional meet at Hickory Point Golf Course.

With its top five runners completing the 3-mile course within 57 seconds of one another, coach Neal Garrison’s Bulldogs zipped to their seventh team sectional championship in the past decade, outpacing all pursuers in the 18-school field.

The Bulldogs, ranked seventh in Class 2A in the final milepslit.com state poll, finished with a team composite score of 61 points.

Also sending teams to state are 25^th-ranked Springfield, the runner-up with a score of 93 points, 19^th-ranked Marion, with a score of 174 points, Urbana (189), Mount Zion (206), Highland (209) and Champaign Central (221).

Three Bulldog seniors set the pace for the team, and each one placed among the top 15 in a field of 138 competitors.

Kyle Nofziger ran third individually, finishing the 3 miles in 16 minutes, 11.78 seconds. He was followed by Joseph Scheele (fifth in 16:18.79) and Jonah Singer (13^th in 16:47.22).

Among seniors competing at the Decatur site, Nofziger and Scheele were second and third, respectively. 

The other two scoring runners for the Bulldogs were juniors: Ben Wallace (24^th in 17:06.01) and Hayden Grotelueschen (28^th in 17:08.93).

The other M-S participants were seniors Taylor Fan (69^th in 17:44.64) and Karsten Waisath (95^th in 18:28.34).

M-S returns to action at noon on Saturday (Nov. 6) in the Class 2A state meet at Peoria’s Detweiller Park. The school is seeking its fifth state trophy in the sport in the past eight years.

In the first two races of the postseason series, 10 different Bulldogs have stepped to the starting line and seven different squad members have been scoring runners at either the regional or the sectional.

Overall, M-S has accumulated eight sectional titles in boys’ cross-country.