OHXC Golden Eagles Advance to Regional - Hart & Brower Earn All Sectional Honors
By Paige Brunner | Oct 19, 2024 2:50 PM
The OHXC Golden Eagles finished a strong 3rd in Saturday's IHSAA Marion Sectional to advance to next Saturday's IHSAA New Haven Super Regional. It marks the 23rd straight season the Golden Eagles have advanced in the tournament and the 9th straight year the Golden Eagles have earned the opportunity to compete for an IHSAA State Finals birth - the 20th time in the last 23 seasons. The IHSAA Tournament format changed a year ago with the elimination of the Semi State round. The Sectional round now serves as somewhat of a combination of the old Sectional and Regional round with the Regional next week now serving as what would have been the old Semi State. State Ranked Yorktown was Sectional Champion with a very low and impressive 20 points. With the Lady Eagles 3rd Place finish as well it marked the 1st time in 8 years OHXC did not win a Sectional Championship. Golden Eagle Sophomore Wyatt Hart continued his breakout season as the he set a new lifetime personal best and finished 10th overall to earn both Top 20 All Sectional Honors as well as Top 15 Individual Regional Qualifier Honors. Classmate Kyle Brower joined Hart in the Top 20 finishing 17th overall to grab All Sectional Honors as well. Hart and Brower's strong days were needed as the Golden Eagles were down Top Runner Junior Corban Tippey. After winning the Central Indiana Conference meet two weeks ago Tippey fell ill during Saturday's race and barely able to finish near the back of the pack. With Tippey down the Golden Eagles also needed Junior Brayden Sommers, Senior Owen Roth, and Freshman Josh Clark to step it up. Sommers was 21st overall while Roth and Clark rounded out the scoring Top 5 in 34th and 37th respectively. Junior Eli Leak was 48th overall. The Golden Eagles compete in the IHSAA New Haven Super Regional Saturday October 26th at Huntington University. The Top 5 teams and Top 15 unaffiliated individuals will advance to the IHSAA State Finals.