NEW MADISON – The WOAC Boys Cross Country Championship was hosted at Tri-Village this year. The young men of Ansonia High School won the 2024 WOAC league Meet and also claimed the top runner and coach of the year. The league title gives the Tigers back-to-back conference championships having won in 2023 as well.
Team placements:
1st Ansonia 54
2nd Newton 57
3rd Twin Valley South 81
4th Arcanum 82
5th National Trail 119
6th Franklin Monroe 133
7th Tri-Village 171
8th Bradford 218
Here are the top 10 individual runners’ placements in this year race with all of them earning Team All-Conference Honors:
1st Bennett Lehman Ansonia 15:52.8
2nd Tucker Denlinger National Trail 16.51.5
3rd Collin Day Dixie 17:08.4
4th Ethan Sparks Ansonia 17:46.0
5th Evan Jackle Dixie 17:54.0
6th Tanner Long Newton 17:57.0
7th Hunter Todd Twin Valley South 17:59.0
8th Samuel DeHart Twin Valley South 18:03.1
9th Hibiki Matsumoto Twin Valley South 18:06.9
10th Micah Arbogast Arcanum 18:08.9
The Ansonia boys took the top spot but had to hold off a strong performance by Newton running in a tight pack to win the league race by 3 points 54-57.
Ansonia Boys and Girls Cross Country Coach Jason Wright earned the 2024 WOAC Boys Cross Country Coach of the Year. Wright also won the award in 2023 as well and talked about the team’s performance.
We’ve been very fortunate here at Ansonia, we’ve had some great teams, great athletes. We’re really excited with how this season has progressed and on winning back-to-back conference championships,” Wright stated.
“I think when you look at all of our runners, I’m talking junior high, the guys, the girls and in high school, we couldn’t have been prouder of our athletes today. We had a lot of PRs on the course, and these kids have worked so hard the last few months and even before this season kicked off. You know, they’ve put so much heart and effort into getting themselves ready for this race today and I couldn’t be prouder of their efforts,” Wright exclaimed.
Coach Wright is not one to take credit and heaped it back at his athletes and assistant coach Allen Newbauer who has been instrumental in helping prepare runners both mentally and physically.
“Listen, I’m riding the coattails of greatness. All the credit goes to the kids, they are fantastic, they have the right attitude, the right work ethic. And yeah, of course I’m going to bring up coach Newbauer. I mean, he has been the key that’s unlocked the full potential of our kids,” Wright explained.
When I asked about the Tigers recent meet at Coldwater and the success they had there, coach Wright praised coach Newbauer on setting it up and preparing the kids for that event and the league meet.
Coach Newbauer talked about his role in helping the team to prepare for big meets.
“The Coldwater event was almost preparation for like a district-type field. The goal was to go out and really have success individually and kind of see where we landed as a team and we kind of used that to springboard back to come here today at the league meet,” defined Newbauer .
In that meet Ansonia sophomore Bennett Lehman ran a 15:24.71 a blistering time that met the 2nd team MileSplit standard in the United States. Also, senior Ethan Sparks turned in his best time at that event as well with a time of 16:57.60 achieving the goals set for the event.
But at the league meet Newbauer stated the gameplan was different.
“Here we know it wasn’t just about times … but more about place, right? And we did exactly that. Everybody kind of had their own assignment to do. Bennett’s assignment was to go out and lead the race, and everybody else’s assignment was to go out and understand where they needed to be and go after certain people that we needed to beat to win the conference and they all did just enough to help us win,” Newbauer clarified.
Bennett Lehman would lead the field from start to finish and in fact won the event by a minute with a time of 15:52.8 and would be named the 2024 WOAC Runner of the Year.
Good luck to all the Cross Country Teams as they prepare to run in post season.
