By Craig Pearson
TERRE HAUTE — Terre Hatue North’s boys cross country team has been in fourth place in the state rankings throughout most of the season.
Columbus North has been No. 1 for most of the season, and the Bulldogs will be very tough to beat Saturday in the state finals at LaVern Gibson Championship Course.
Columbus North, winners of the 2002 and 2003 state championships, has a tightly packed group that Terre Haute North runner John Mascari said “demolished every team” in its semistate, including No. 2 Carmel, No. 3 North Central and No. 9 Noblesville.
Mascari, picked by most to be in the top 10 overall, said the past races are a way to gauge the favorites, but anything can happen on race day.
“It’s nice being ranked in the top 5, but none of that matters. Anybody can accomplish anything,” Mascari said. “[Columbus North] is going to be tough to beat, but it could happen.”
The Patriots have one of the state’s deepest team, with No. 7 runner Dylan Bertsch having the potential to beat some of the top teams’ fifth runner. The top five runners for each team make the score.
“It’s important to have a good No. 7, it’s just going to push other teams back farther in the standings,” said Bertsch, one of five outstanding juniors that make up North’s top seven. “It’s going to be crazy out there, just keep your pace the entire time and run smart. I think we have great chance of showing we’re one of the best teams in the state of Indiana.”
Bertsch got the best of Indianapolis North Central’s fifth runner in the Metropolitan Interschoalstic Conference meet, which North finished third, but “it would be tough for them to do that again [in a bigger meet],” coach Lon McDonald said. “Dylan’s the best No. 7 runner in the state.”
This year’s junior class led the Patriots to a seventh-place finish at the 2008 state meet, which was “a little disappointing,” junior Milton Brinza said, but it was still the best finish for a Vigo County boys cross country team since the 1972 team won the state title. It surpassed Terre Haute South’s 10th-place finish in 1996 and 12th-place finish in 1986.
But as Brinza said, the Patriots expected to receive a medal on the podium as one of the top five teams. He and his teammates have a chance at redemption this year.
“It kind of leaves a fire burning inside of you,” Brinza said. “It only comes around once a year so it’s a special meet. We’re all just hoping to go out on Halloween and have some fun.”
John Davis, who missed the semistate due to an illness, said he’s “back to full strength” this week.
“It can go both ways. Rankings are arbitrary. We have the same hopes and aspirations as last year,” Davis said. “It just depends on how we run as a team. [The other contenders] are no better than we are.”
The Patriots hope the luxury of running on their home course can help, and North will start out of the gates just two spots down from Columbus North, making the Bulldogs’ runners not too hard to find after the gun fires.
“We’ll be rubbing shoulders,” McDonald said. “Columbus may have the tightest group and that may be what will do it for them. They’re very impressive. they’ll be two lanes over, we’ll know where the race is.”
Brian Depasse knows the challenge ahead of them, especially the way Columbus North has ran this season.
“It is [intimidating], but running against them before puts it in grasp,” Depasse said of the Patriots’ loss to the Bulldogs at the Brown County Invitational earlier this season.
“They’ve got a pack just like we do, but it’s up just a little farther so we’ve got to get up there and break it up.”
Last year’s disappointment made North work harder throughout the offseason, and the Patriots’ lone senior, David Tucker, is a prime example of that.
Tucker’s first year of cross country was two years ago as a sophomore, and as a junior he couldn’t crack the top seven.
This season, he’s consistently been the Patriots’ No. 4 or No. 5 runner after shaving two minutes off his 5K
“It took me a while to get the hang of the mileage. I saw Milton and Brian, with them being two of my best friends, I just really stepped up my game and hung with them this year,” Tucker said. “When I watched them run state last year, I knew I wanted to be in it next year. Lot of hard training and the intensity really stepped up.”
North’s only sophomore, Tyeson Mundy, was among the top seven last year, but he had a bad day at last year’s state meet.
“I think last year I was a little nervous. This year, I’ll just take it as a normal meet, go out there and run hard,” Mundy said.
Depasse said the Patriots have the focus and the valuable experience to accomplish their goal this season.
“We’ve got so much more motivation this year from that past experience. We’ve worked so much harder. We want it a lot more than last year.”
Mascari, who could contend with the state’s elite for top individual honors, has ran a season-best time of 15:30 this season. He’s confident he can improve on his 16th-place result in last year’s state finals.
Sloppy course conditions, definitely possible if rain falls again today, shouldn’t affect him, McDonald said.
“A guy like Mascari, he’s not just my fastest, he’s my strongest,” McDonald said. “He does us the most good by running out front. He calculates enough, that we’re not going to get a bad performance out of him any time. He’s a top 5 guy. He’s aware of that. He’ll be near the front.”
