MADISON TOWNSHIP — Cooper Brockway made a statement Monday afternoon.
Brockway, Crestview’s junior distance ace, won the Richland County B-Dry Cross Country Invitational in resounding fashion, finishing in 16 minutes, 59.1 seconds.
Brockway’s winning time was 25 seconds faster than runner-up Marshall Moore of Shelby and more than 90 seconds faster than his time at last year’s county championship. Brockway finished eight last year in 18:30.50.
“Last year I went 18:30 here. To drop a minute-and-a-half, that’s pretty crazy,” said Brockway, who finished 81st at last year’s Division III state meet at Fortress Obetz. “Last year I was behind (three-time champ) Huck Finnegan and all the Shelby boys.
“I finally got them all.”
Even without the graduated Finnegan, Shelby had no trouble in defending its team title. The Whippets finished with a score of 20. Moore finished in 17:25.7, followed by teammates Indy Mayer (17:36.2), Luke Lesseuer (17:46.6), Carson Perkins (18:42.3) and Sean Finnegan (19:25.3).
“Coming through the two-mile, there’s a loop around where you can kind of see the people,” Brockway said. “I saw Indy, Luke and Marshall and they were all right there.
“I was like, ‘Dang, they’re going to be gunning for me this last mile.’ Luckily, I held them off.”
Brockway credited his 90-second improvement from a year ago to a tailored summer training program.
“I was doing some tempo and progression runs during the summer,” Brockway said. “Last year it was strictly mileage. The speed work definitely helped a lot.”
Lexington’s junior varsity team finished second with a team score of 100. Diggy Terry led the way, finishing seventh in 19:44.6.
Madison (84) was third. Freshman Evan Larsen led the Rams, finishing ninth in 19:54.
Crestview was fourth with a team score of 100, followed by Clear Fork (124). Freshman Peyton Freitag paced the Colts, finishing 18th in 21:13.4.
Mansfield Senior didn’t have enough runners to compete in the team competition. The Tygers were led by freshman Gavin Camak (26:42.7).