Chris Yingling | Echo
The men and women's cross country teams were in fine form for the Little State Championship hosted by Purdue University on Friday.
Taylor's No. 21 men's team finished fourth in the 20-team event-just the second meet of the season. Competing without several key runners, the team ran well and was able to shave two minutes off its performance from the season-opening Ray Bullock Invitational.
"Our team displayed tremendous depth," said head coach Lance Vanderberg. "Despite completing without four of our athletes, we still improved our time by two minutes from our first meet. We also placed one spot higher than last year at this meet."
Taylor finished with six competitors inside the top-50 in a field that had 150 runners. Senior Ethan Evans scored in the top 20, finishing in 16th place with a time of 26:56. Freshman Stephen Cho took 21st with a time of 27:03, while sophomore Tanner Dye rounded out the top 25, finishing 25th.
The Trojans finished with six runners in the top-50 as senior Zach Warner (32nd), sophomore Aaron Scott (44th) and junior Aaron Crull (50th) all performed for Taylor.
"Our team is certainly on the right track as we look ahead to pre-nationals," Vanderberg said. "As we return to full strength, we will have a lot of time to prepare for both that meet and the final stretch of the season afterwards."
The No. 7 Taylor women's team won the Little State Championship and placed six runners in the top 20.
Freshmen Alex Berends and senior Elaine Schmeltz led the Trojans by taking first and second place, respectively, out of 148 runners. Berends and Schmeltz were followed by junior Jane Hawks (12th), senior Jenna Morris (14th), sophomore Anna Meyer (15th) and senior Allison Steinbeck (16th).
"We performed about as well as we could at this stage of the season," said head coach Quinn White. "I probably could not have asked much more from them as a whole."
The win in the Little State Championship is the Trojans' second victory in as many races, for a 27-0 record to start the 2014 season.Taylor's final time of 92:04 was enough to beat NCAA Division II Indianapolis by 1:12 and Division III DePauw by 3:22. Crossroads League rivals Huntington and Marian finished four minutes behind Taylor.
Taylor's final time clocked below four NCAA Division I teams that competed in the Big State race above IUPUI, Indiana State, Ball State and Evansville. Only Indiana and Purdue finished with faster times than the Trojans.
Berends turned in a race-winning time of 17:25, 44 seconds better than the 18:09 time from Schmeltz. Along with the lowest time in the Little State race, Berends ran for the second-fastest time of all NCAA Division I, II, III and NAIA runners in the two events.
"It was exciting to beat the majority of the Division I's and all the DII, DIII and NAIA schools," White said. "It was a lot of fun and a great challenge to run such good teams. Hopefully this meet will propel us forward as we continue to strive for our bigger goals down the road."
Both teams get three weeks off before heading to the NAIA Preview in Lawrence, Kan., on Oct. 11.
