ELKHART – If anyone attended the 2014 Northern Lakes Conference Girls Cross Country Championships, they may have wondered where the time went when Saturday morning’s girls race at OxBow Park began to unfold. In what became nearly an identical replay of last season, Northridge and Warsaw traded the top 10 spots. But this time around, Warsaw had the right numbers combination to claim the NLC title with a one-point win over Northridge and the remainder of the conference.

The 2014 version had Northridge edge Warsaw by one point, sliding in late to take key spots among the top 10. Warsaw did the exact same thing Ridge did last year, using late bursts to win the title outright after running the table 7-0 during the regular season.

Anna Craig had maybe the most key burst of anyone on Warsaw’s roster, moving from fifth to third with a push in the final 200 meters to finish at 19:15, ahead of Raider Mackenzie Adams’ 19:17.2. Allison Miller of Warsaw was on Adams’ heels at 19:17.9 for fifth place.

Northridge’s Morgan Blyly was the NLC champion with a time of 18:45, pulling away from Warsaw’s Mia Beckham the final 500 meters as the Tiger sophomore came in at 18:50.

Ridge’s Jenna Miller and Mariah King ran together to time in at 19:35 and 19:36. The decisive spots came from Brooke Rhodes and Hannah Dawson, who were able to pull away from McKenzie Love. Rhodes came in at 19:42 and Dawson at 19:55 in a vital spurt of life down the chute, leaving Love back at 20:03.

Knowing how it felt last year to split the title with Ridge, Warsaw head coach Scott Erba could only breathe a sigh of deserved relief as his team didn’t have to split anything this time around.

“I was very impressed with the racing today,” Erba said. “We had some fantastic runs today, a lot of them ran their best races of their lives, and Northridge was still right there with us. It’s a tip of the cap to them for making it a very good race. If you run your best, we have to be satisfied. If you do that and someone beats you, so be it. But we had just enough to edge some runners at the end.”

Claire Kehler (11, 20:07) and Emma Hayward (16, 20:26) completed the Warsaw participants.

Wawasee fell back in the pack and placed sixth with 151 points. Aubrey Kuhn was the top runner for the Lady Warriors with a time of 20:39, which got her into the 20th position. McKenzie Smith was two spots back in 22nd at 20:59 and Elizabeth Zorn gave Wawasee a third in the top 25 with a 24th place run of 21:05.

Delaine Bame (42, 22:54), Bailey Schroeder (43, 23:03), Yanelly Pizana (44, 23:06) and Keyanna Clevenger (45, 23:09) rounded out the Wawasee scorecard.

“I would say this was a good day for us, all things considered,” said Wawasee head coach Doug Slabaugh. “Every place matters, no matter if you are our one or seven. One through three had really good days for us, the best we have had all year. Our four through seven didn’t have bad days, but a minute between the two groups is what killed us. That’s something we need to address.”

The final NLC standings were Warsaw 27, Northridge 28, Concord 98, Goshen 128, NorthWood 133, Wawasee 151, Memorial 204, Plymouth 208

It was announced during the awards ceremony that this, unverified, is the first year in NLC history that both the boys and girls team standings in the round robin finished exactly the same. Warsaw was 7-0 in both, Northridge was 6-1 in both, and so on.

Warsaw will now focus on the Culver Academy Sectional next Saturday while Wawasee will look to evaluate its time on the OxBow course as Elkhart Central will host the sectional next Saturday at OxBow Park.