Kokomo Athletics

The Lady Kats cross country team raced at the Logansport Sectional, finishing a heartbreaking sixth overall—just one spot shy of advancing as a team to regionals. Despite narrowly missing the cutoff, the Wildkats celebrated two individual qualifiers, as sophomore Alaina Thompson and senior Morgan Rakestraw both earned their place in the next round of the IHSAA Tournament. Kokomo’s sixth-place finish was a testament to the team’s depth and determination. Every runner played a role in keeping the Wildkats within striking distance of a regional berth. The Logansport course offered rolling terrain and tricky footing that tested our kids and made for a slow day times wise, but I am proud of our girls for doing their best to advance. We were supposed to finish 8th, but we improved our spot and gave ourselves a shot to advance as a group. Sophomore Alaina Thompson continued her season with a 10th-place finish with a time of 22:17, securing her spot at regionals as one of the top individual qualifiers not on an advancing team and being All-Sectional, which is the top 20 runners. Her performance once again underscored her consistency and competitiveness against some of the area’s best runners. Senior Morgan Rakestraw also extended her season, finishing 38th overall, with a time of 24:34, to earn her own regional qualification. Morgan ran a tough race and had to fight hard to advance to the regional, but she gave it her all at the end to secure her spot. The sectional marks the end of the road for the rest of our team, but I am grateful for them. These girls worked hard this year and made improvements each week. Over the course of the last four seasons our girls’ team has come far and taken the program to new heights and shown what hard work and dedication can do. We will miss our seniors Gretchen Riggle, Christina Durham, Claire Callane, Macy Rakestraw, Maddie Armstrong, Grace Lake, Teagan Dalton, and Megan Leavitt. They mean so much to me and our team and we will miss them dearly next season. Alaina and Morgan will now turn their focus to next week’s regional meet at Brownsburg, where they’ll represent Kokomo against an even tougher field. They will race at 11:15am next Saturday at Brownsburg East Middle School.