Record Breaking Day for BRICKIE Cross Country in Elkhart

The Hokum Karem has a tradition of fashioning the trophy based on the school colors of the winning team. This year the Brickie, men’s team brought home a purple trophy. They have won the Hokum in Elkhart for the past two years and repeated this Saturday to bring it home once again. The Girls Victory gave the Hobart Cross Country Team a double victory, winning their division as well.

The Brickies hadn’t done the Hokum since 2007 and returned in 2011 where the boys have won each and every year since.

“Hobart holds the 3 fastest winning times on the boys side and yesterday all 8 of them placed in the top 15 individually as well,” coach “A” stated, adding that, “This was a great day for us today.”

A great job to Brent Dunn, John Petroskey, Alek Seeley, Reno Erving, Collin Allen, Jacy Leon making the top team time along with Brandon Robison and Josh Novak.

The girls were so excited to have a victory their first time out this season. Their trophy was green but the one up for grabs next year will be purple in honor of their victory. Just a few years ago the team didn’t even have enough members to field 6 girls to make the required 3 teams of 2. Saturday was a different story. It was a record breaking day for them as well. The girls hadn’t won the race since 2004 and today not only did they win it but they crushed it, shattering the previous record set by Goshen in 2007. That record was 1:55:37 it is now replaced by the Brickie girls’ new record breaking time of 1:51:51; a faster time by 3:46. The girls have won 1st place the last two years but hadn’t come away with the team title. This year that 1st place pair of Mindy Whidden and Celena Guerrero set a record time of 34:53. Other members of the winning team were Sydney Hicks, Marina Ahner, Marissa Porras, Harley Sutton along with Maddy Leonard and Brittany Anderson.

Marissa Porras stated that, “I felt we really ran strong today.”

Teammate Rachel Holmes agreed, “We ran strong and we are going to get better.”

Harley Sutton was excited both teams won today attributing their win to the teams coaching. They are looking forward to seeing what they can do next weekend at the Lake Central Invite.

Senior Brent Dunn felt, “The meet went pretty well. It was good to see how the B team was going to run. I’m happy with the outcome.”

“It was good to have a third straight victory, it was neat seeing the purple trophy in honor of our previous wins and knowing it’s going to stay that way for next year,” Senior Alek Seeley stated.

Reno Erving is new to the Cross Country team. He is a senior and said it was an “experience” running on Saturday.

Having run track, he decided to try Cross Country and said it was, “Definitely hard, definitely harder than track.”

Both the boys and girls pretty much practice together. Even though there is a little competition to bring back hardware to the trophy case this year they support each other during their races.

Junior Collin Allen stated, “It was a good day for the team.”

Both teams very proud of their trophies in tow.

Coach Artherhults, Black and Swafford state, “We’re proud of the kids and pleased with today’s outcome, all our new runners ran well.”

Next week you can see the Brickie Squad run at Lake Central at 10am on Saturday the 31st, followed by a trip out to Highland on the 3rd.