Regional finish

FORT WAYNE — Joseph Boggs was going to need to run a career-best time for the second consecutive week just to have an outside chance at earning a state berth.

Alexis Sibray and Caleb Garringer faced even longer odds.

The strength of the field proved too much for the Patriots to overcome.

Sibray’s 112th-place finish in a field of 246 girls led the way for the Jay County High School cross country trio during the regional meet hosted by New Haven on Saturday at The Plex.

Boggs finished 116th in the boys race, with Garringer just 10 spots behind him.

Ultimately, the Patriots are hopeful that their experience at the regional level in the new tournament format — the new regional is more akin to a semi-state from years past — will help them grow moving forward.

“If you’re planning on being a competitor that wants to make it to state, you’ve got to put yourself in these kind of races,” said JCHS coach Bruce Wood. Each race Saturday had nearly 250 competitors, compared to the about 100 a week earlier at the sectional level. “You’ve got to learn how to run in those type of environments. … You have to learn how to run your race, how to run in that crowd.”

The IHSAA has reformatted the tournament this season, with five sectionals each sending five teams and 15 individuals to one of five regionals. (Previously, two sectionals fed into a regional.) The semi-state level has been eliminated, with the top five teams and top 15 individuals not on an advance team from each regional heading on to the state finals.

Concordia won both team championships — its girls are ranked third in the state and boys 14 — and was joined by advancing teams No. 16 Warsaw, Wabash, Angola and Carroll in the boys race and No. 2 Homestead, No. 9 Carroll, No. 20 East Noble and No. 18 Warsaw for the girls.

Sibray, a sophomore, ran a consistent race, similar to what she did the previous week to place 17th in the sectional. The sophomore crossed the finish line in 21 minutes, 32.2 seconds, about 12 seconds off the time she posted a week earlier.

“Going into it, realistically, we were just trying to get a PR and have a good performance, something to grow on for the next year,” said Wood. “She didn’t follow up a good sectional performance last year with a like regional performance.”

She was able to change that script Saturday.

“I thought she ran really well, better than her regional performance a year ago,” said Wood.

The final girls regional qualifying spot went to Blue River Valley’s Charlee Gibson at 19:26. She finished 30th.

Boggs, a sophomore, was never able to put himself in a position to make a run at a state berth, sitting outside the top 100 early and unable to make much headway from there. He ran a different strategy from a week earlier, trying to split each mile of the race at about 5:18.

“The first mile, they were pretty much dead on,” said Wood, noting that he had figured it would take a time in the 16:30s in order to have a chance at state. (Boggs’ sectional time of 17:01.8 was a career-best.) “Second mile, they were about 15 seconds off of the pace that it would have taken. And I’m not sure what happened in their third mile. Joseph wasn’t able to keep up that 5:18, 5:19 pace, which is understandable. It’s not something he’s ran yet.”

Boggs ended up 116th, finishing in 17:45.5. (Wood’s estimation was correct, as New Haven sophomore Bryan Garcia’s 29th-place finish in 16:31.5 earned him the final state berth.)

Garringer, a freshman, was close behind his teammate most of the way. He was nearly able to match his career-best sectional pace — 17:48 — as he posted a time of 17:52 for 126th place out of 247 competitors.

He was 17th among freshmen in the regional race.

“That whole atmosphere for that race is just way bigger than anything we see,” said Wood. “Sectional is not anywhere close to that. … I think he did a real nice job with it. … 

That included some jostling among the field that sounded like a thundering herd as it squeezed through the narrow gap in the tree line about 200 meters from the start line.

“There was some contact in there,” said Wood. “Probably not something he's had to deal with in a cross country race.”