Northwest Indiana cross country runners race into the season at the Jack Bransford Invitational

Boys and girls cross country teams from across Northwest Indiana gathered at Kesling Park in La Porte for the Jack Bransford Invitational. The runners gave it their allon the cool summer morning. 

La Porte hosts this invitational every year, and it is named after Jack Bransford, a former coach for La Porte cross country.

“I retired in 1998,” Bransford said. “The boys, without me knowing it, talked to the athletic director and wanted to know if they could change the name of the cross country meet from the La Porte Classic to the Jack Bransford Classic. Here we are twenty one years later.”

The teams that participated included Lake Central High School, Crown Point High School, Portage High School, La Porte High School, and Munster High School. For many of the teams, this was their first meet and all of them know that they are just getting started.

“We are trying to learn some things from this meet that we can apply and improve upon for future meets,” Crown Point boys’ coach Keith Iddings said. “The kids have hada terrific summer of conditioning. Very interested to see how the season is going to progress.”

For the boys’ race, the first place team was Crown Point High School winning with 35 points. Second place was La Porte High School with 41 points.Third place was Lake Central High School with 61 points. Fourth place was Munster High School with 94 points. Fifth place was Portage High School with 120 points.

Individually, the boys top 10 were as follows: 

1. Genesio Christofanelli (Crown Point)
2. Conner Havens (La Porte)
3. Quinton Brock (Crown Point)
4. Cole Raymond(La Porte)
5. Sam Bell (La Porte)
6. Martin Marquez (Crown Point)
7. Logan Russel(Lake Central)
8. Ari Arzumanian (Munster)
9. Anthony Saberniak(Crown Point)
10.  Vincent Vanderveen (Lake Central) 

“I think our team did really well. We ran hard,” La Porte runner Winston said. “We still have time to improve and get better.”

The girls’ race had Lake Central in first place with 48 points, Crown Point in second with 49 points, Portage with 58 points, La Porte with 91 points, and Munster with 127 points.

The girls top ten included the following

1. Jaelyn Burgos(Crown Point)
2. Hannah Robbins (Munster)
3. Brisa Martinez (Portage)
4. Kaitlyn Mackovyak (Portage)
5. Caitlyn Derwinski (Crown Point)
6. Taylor Kosiek (Lake Central)
7. Nora Carpenter (Crown Point)
8. Natalie Kransky (Lake Central)
9. Abigail Martisek (Lake Central)
10. Elle Bensz (La Porte)

“This is a good starting point. A chance to get out there and race after training all summer long,” Portage girls’ coach Jay White said. “See some of the other teams in the Duneland Conference and see where we are at. See what direction we need to go.”