November 20, 2009 1:45 AM
Nolan Fife repeated as most valuable runner of the Seymour boys cross country team, while Leah Benefiel and Abby Morrow shared MVR honors for the Seymour girls when the cross country teams held an awards program Thursday night in the school cafeteria.
Fife set the school record for 5,000 meters with a time of 15:34. He earned first team all-state honors and advanced to the state meet.
“He was first for us in every meet,” his father and coach, Randy Fife, said.
Seymour ran in 11 meets and Nolan placed first in the Seymour and Batesville invitationals, sectional, regional and Hoosier Hills Conference meet to earn all-HHC honors.
Fife and fellow senior Kyle McCauley shared the coaches award.
“They were our captains and both worked awful hard,” Fife said.
Zach Toppe received the mental attitude award.
“He didn’t have the kind of season he wanted to have, but he also worked hard,” Fife said. Toppe said he decided to run cross country prior to his sophomore year.
“It was a big decision, and it was the right decision,” Toppe said.
Seymour placed second in the HHC meet, and Steven Tanner and Joe Trueblood were honorable mention.
“It’s tough to talk about the season without bragging,” Fife said. “We had a solid season, and I’m very happy with our season. We won five meets.”
Those firsts came in the Seymour, Bedford North Lawrence and Batesville invitationals, sectional and regional.
“We had five runners new to cross country, and hopefully each of those will come back next year,” Fife said.
He presented varsity letters to 11 runners and said, “This is probably as solid a group of letter winners, from top to bottom, as I’ve ever had. We had five seniors, and they contributed to the team and provided leadership. This group of seniors is the most successful class to go through Seymour High School.”
Fife, Toppe, McCauley, Tanner and Josiah Prewitt were the seniors who lettered.
Lady Owls coach Spencer Sunbury said either Leah Benefiel or Abby Morrow finished No. 1 for Seymour in every race, so he named them co-most valuable runners.
“They led by example,” Sunbury said.
Benefiel ranks seventh on Seymour’s top 10 career-best times with a 22:07 (ran in 2008), while Morrow is seventh with the 22:46 that she ran in the sectional this year.
Sunbury presented the 110 percent award to Paiton Chastain.
“Day in and day out, she gave a good effort,” he said. “She was injured and didn’t get to run in all the meets.”
Magen Kinzie received the coaches award, Adrianna Bassard was named most improved and Sarah White was named the newcomer of the year.
“(Kinzie) made a statement with her running,” Sunbury said. “I chose (Bassard) as most improved because of her running and her improvement within herself. I give the newcomer award to someone who is new to cross country and somebody who shows hard work and determination. By our second or third meet, (White) was running varsity.”
Sunbury said when preseason practice began, he had runners with a combined 21 seasons of varsity experience, “but in our first meet we only had nine years of experience. We had five girls that earned varsity letters, that this was their first year running cross country in high school. We were young.”
There weren’t any seniors on the team and only three juniors. Sunbury presented varsity letters to 11 girls, and six of them were first-time winners and the other five earned their second award.
The Lady Owls placed sixth in the sectional, seventh in the Seymour Invitational and eighth in the HHC.
“The girls were disappointed they didn’t make it out of the sectional,” Sunbury said.
But he thought the sectional was the highlight for the season for his team.
“The sectional was our best performance,” he said. “In looking at the squad, the girls came out and ran hard. Three of
