Published: October 30, 2009 11:14 pm         

State’s top high school cross country teams vying for championships

TERRE HAUTE — It’s only fitting the best cross country runners from around the state will have to conquer some soggy conditions today at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course, since that has been the case for the past two weekends for most of the action around Indiana.

Today’s state finals — the boys race begins at 1 p.m. and the girls at 1:45 p.m. — are the sixth consecutive to take place in Terre Haute.

The favorites are clear on the boys side as No. 1 Columbus North will go for the school’s third state title in boys cross country, and Indianapolis North Central sophomore Futsam Zeinasellassie, a native of Eritrea in east Africa, is the target for the other boys contenders.

The girls race appears to be more wide open for both the team title and individual honors. While Carmel is the defending champion and top-ranked team with two individuals with the potential to finish first, several teams like their chances.

Zeinasellassie took second place last year in the boys race. He had to stop for about 10 seconds early in last year’s race when one shoe came off his foot. He lost by five seconds to senior Drew Shields of Fishers.

“There’s no pressure,” Zeinasellassie said in by telephone earlier this week. “I would say I’m just going to try my best on that race. God knows what’s going to happen so there’s no pressure on me. I’m just a sophomore and there’s always next year.”

His top challenger might be out of the Brown County Semistate, where Tyler Burne of North Harrison took home first place on extremely muddy terrain.

“I don’t see anybody stronger than Burne in the slop, but we’ll see,” said Lon McDonald, coach of No. 5 Terre Haute North. “He looked really good Saturday.”

Columbus North also looked good last weekend, winning the high-caliber Carmel Semistate with just 44 points.

The Bulldogs have a tight pack, typically led by senior Evan Scruton. Five of the CN runners have run a time of 16 minutes or less this season.

“We’ve come a long way in a year. At that point, we weren’t contenders,” said 32nd-year Columbus North coach Rick Weinheimer, who has had 16 medalist teams over the years between boys and girls. “I think most of our kids are committed 12 months a year. I think that makes a big difference.”

Among the girls contenders is No. 5 Terre Haute North. Freshmen Tapring Goatee and Chanli Mundy, who could both be among today’s frontrunners, and their teammates thrived in muddy conditions the past two weekends.

“We want Brown County all over again,” North coach Mike Dason said after leaving the course during Friday’s rain showers. “Right now it is Brown County to a tee. It is very wet.”

Coach of No. 2 Fort Wayne Carroll, Zach Raber, said it should be a tight team battle.

“It’s pretty close. Our front stacks up with Carmel pretty well,” Raber said. “Noblesville’s got a real shot. Franklin Central’s been running really well. I would have had them as the favorite until a couple weeks ago. Terre Haute North looks really good. They look like they’ve tied it together. I think they’ve got as good a shot as anybody.”