The Warsaw cross country teams traveled to Marion Saturday to run at their Invitational Saturday held at Indiana Wesleyan. The Lady Tigers competed in the Chuck Schlemmer Elite Girls Varsity Race and the combined JV race. With ideal running conditions and a loaded field that included state-ranked teams FW Concordia (#2), Homestead (#4), Westfield (#10), FW Carroll (#23), along with nine other highly competitive programs, the Lady Tigers rose to the challenge and finished 5th as a team. The varsity delivered seven new personal bests. Senior Sammi Rastrelli led the way with a stellar 18:32.0, placing 8th overall. Freshman Dani Rastrelli followed with a breakthrough 19:15.5 (23rd), while senior Eden Metz added another season’s best at 19:27.1 (26th). Rounding out the scoring effort were Eden Gackenheimer with a new PR (20:33.1, 52nd) and Katie Robertson (20:46.1, 59th) also a new PR. Hannah Fisher clocked a season-best 20:57.2 (62nd), and Stephanie Malagon ran a strong 21:06.6 (65th) to solidify the Tigers’ depth. Additional varsity competitors included Matilda Granger (PR 21:17.8), Savannah Purdy (PR 21:27.5), Aubrey Bricker (21:52.3), and Melayna Howett (PR 22:47.9). In the JV race, the Lady Tigers added another five personal records, with Neko Ewert leading the way at 22:40.4 (PR) and Estelle Jaumard close behind in 22:48.8 (PR). Strong efforts continued with Airyana Bradley (23:10.8), Nadia Patton (24:06.8), Bronwyn Poch (24:16.8), Callaway Waldo (PR 24:42.4), Andrice Simfukwe (PR 24:51.9), Sofie Tumova (PR 26:00.6), and Ellie Sprunger (27:43.5). “We were very proud of everyone’s effort today,” said Assistant Coach Zvers. “I thought we did what we needed to do as a team, and we’ve been working to close the gaps between our groups. Today we saw some remarkable efforts all the way through the lineup.” Here is the link to the girls race: Full results: http://live.crossroadstiming.com/meets/702376/team-scores/1_F_4 The Tiger boys finished 11th in the Terry Lakes Elite Boys Varsity Race. Jackson Gackenheimer was back in the lineup for Warsaw, and finished 2nd with a time of 14:59 which is a new school record. It beat the old record of 15:21 set in 2014 by Ellis Coon on the same course. Head Coach Matt Campbell said, “Jackson hasn’t done a lot of workouts, but his consistency and the small amount of reps he has done told us he was ready to chase sub-15. We held him out of the first NLC Super Dual to give him this opportunity, and he knocked it out of the park. The strategy was simple—hang with Noah as long as possible. To run 14:59 in only his second race of the season shows he’s building confidence and racing fitness.” Freshmen Luke Vander Bie (17:39) and Spiros Christos (17:41) emerged as the team’s No. 4 and No. 5 runners, while fellow freshman Eli Swinehart, who ran 17:53 earlier this season before battling injury, returned to run 18:11 as the Tigers’ 10th man. “It’s exciting to see freshmen racing this quick, this early,” Campbell noted. Juniors Jaxon Lehman, Jack Boggs, Nolan Stump, Alex Hoover, and Owen Meerzo, along with sophomore Keenan Lyions, all made significant progress, averaging 31 seconds of improvement across the group. The goal is for this pack to push into the 17:00–17:40 range by the end of the season. Senior Trevor Vosberg also turned in a breakout race, improving by 30 seconds to run 18:09. In the JV races, the Tigers continued to impress, with three boys earning their Varsity letter by breaking 19:00: junior Caleb Poorman, junior Grayson Waldo, and freshman Clint Douglas. With these additions, Warsaw now has 16 of 35 boys achieving Varsity letter status this season. See the full boys results with this link: https://in.milesplit.com/meets/702376-marion-invitational-2025/results/1201134/raw