ELKHART – It would be really hard to describe how Wawasee’s Luke Griner won the boys cross country sectional race Saturday morning at Ox Bow Park without harkening back to June in Bloomington. Then, his kick in the final turn of the 800-meter run had him pass several runners and land him on the podium at the boys track championships.

That same type of kick had Griner make a similar pass heading down the final hill into the chute in the final 500 yards of the race and run away with a 16:38 championship at the Elkhart Central Cross Country Sectional.

“Throughout the year I’ve always had a good last fifth K, and I’ve run with Spencer (Hare) where he always runs faster in the middle, and hanging with him has helped me stay up near the front,” Griner said, noting he also made some hay on the downhill portions of the course. “I’ve always visualized staying with the lead pack, I can catch them and win. That’s what happened today.”

Griner’s win helped Wawasee to 91 points, tying Elkhart Memorial but landing third on the fifth-man scores. Northridge got the last laugh by accepting the sectional championship trophy with 80 points.

The Warriors had its two stalwarts up front again, with Griner and Hare among the leaders the entire way. Hare, who was very impressive at the Northern Lakes Conference meet a week ago in a runner-up performance, maintained his pace but couldn’t make that final push and fell to sixth at 16:59. From there, unfortunately for the sectional title hopes for the Warriors, its pack didn’t come through. Michael Hammer was 16th at 17:33, Bennett Hoffert took 29th at 18:06 and Thomas Conley slid back into 39th at 18:27.

“It was very competitive, but our back half didn’t run as well as they did a week ago, and that hurt us a little,” said Wawasee boys coach Chad Hoffert. “Hammer came through with a pretty solid performance but he

‘s still learning how to run in high pressure meets. Ben was about where he was a week ago, but we didn’t have a couple guys run where they were, and in meets like these where everyone matters, those things we need to get corrected heading into next week.”

Northridge had its top runner, Noah Detwiler, finish fourth at 16:53 and its top four all inside the top 18. Memorial, which was sixth at the NLC meet, took second by getting all five of its runners inside the top 30, its top effort at 16:53 by Hazael Morales. Concord was fourth at 95 points and Goshen took the fifth and final regional spot with 97 points.

NorthWood had three individuals advance to next week’s regional among its team that landed seventh. Tyler Evers (17:55), Garrett Myers (18:17) and Austin Escamilla (18:18) all will run the Ox Bow course again.

Lakeland Christian Academy had just two runners active, Trenton Parker at 23:09 and Sam Turner at 23:41, both seeing their seasons come to an end.