Lauren Kelly and Katelyn Meyer are moving on to the Shelbyville Girls Cross Country Semi State after their performances Saturday at the Rushville Regional.

A junior and senior, respectively, Kelly finished seventh overall at the regional in 20:14.56 while Meyer completed the 5K-course in 21:34.10 for 24th.

FC coach Stacey Nobbe said Kelly's run was a PR.

“She was able to hold off Seton Catholic's Erika Barker and Connersville's Tylissa Beckner,” Nobbe said. “The three of them are always in tough competition with each other and respect each other's accomplishments.”

According to Nobbe, Meyer's time was a career-best.

“She lowered her time by 20 seconds,” Nobbe said.

As a team, the Lady Wildcats finished the day in eighth place out of a field of 10 teams. The Wildcats were just three points behind Eastern Indiana Athletic Conference foe Rushville 191-188.

The top five teams advance to the semi state.

New Palestine won the regional with 29 points. Franklin Central was second with 40. There was a huge drop off for the third-place team, Roncalli, which had 105 points. Mt Vernon (Fortville) was next with 113. Warren Central was the last team to move to the semi state with 140 points. The sixth place team, and the first team to not advance was Centerville with 172 points. Rushville and FC took seventh and eighth place, respectively while Union County came in ninth with 236 points and Hagerstown was 10th with 256 points.

Individually sophomore Katherine Apsley had a career PR of 24:19. That was good enough for 70th. Immediately behind her was another sophomore Emma Cabezuelo. This was Cabezuelo's initial year of cross country. In her last race she also had her best time, 24:44 and she came in 71st.
Junior Josie Selm has been fighting a nagging injury over the past two weeks. She finished 75th with a time of 24:57.

Freshman Kenzie Rogers dropped two minutes off her sectional time and went from 40 minutes in her first race to 26:27 Saturday. She placed 81st.

“She will be one to watch in the years to come,” Nobbe said.

The Shelbyville Girls Cross Country Semi State is Saturday, Oct. 26, and it begins at 11:15 a.m.

Boys run career best times

The three male runners who represented Franklin County at the Rushville Boys Cross Country Regional Saturday, Oct. 19, all ran their career personal bests.

Junior Drew Grant finished the course in 18:14, which was good enough for 50th place.

Sophomore Ben Maze ran close to Drew Grant with Maze coming in with a time of 18:33, which landed him in 59th place. Another sophomore, Adam Grant, came in with a 18:52, bettering his last personal best at the Connersville Sectional by almost 30 seconds. In that race, he finished with a 19:18.
He came in 66th.

“Even though the Wildcat boys won't be advancing to semi-state, they ran their best races to date, and Franklin County is very proud of them for that,” Franklin County coach Stacey Nobbe said.

The three participants did not have enough runners for a team title. Franklin Central won the regional with 31 points. Warren Central was second with 61 points, and Roncalli was third with 86 points. Mt. Vernon was fourth with 111 and Cambridge City Lincoln rounded out the five teams advancing to the Shelbyville semi state with 135 points.

Eastern Indiana Athletic Conference member Rushville just missed advancing as the Lions scored 163 points. Just six points behind the Lions was Hagerstown with a 169. New Palestine was eighth with 195. 

Centerville and EIAC member Connersville rounded out the top 10. Centerville finished with 219 points while Connersville had 253.