Oak Hill High School

The OHXC Golden Eagles are headed back to the IHSAA State Finals thanks to a great run from Senior Corban Tippey at Saturday's IHSAA New Haven Regional held at Huntington University. While the team was part of the conversation for potential teams to possibly advance to next week's State Finals ultimately falling just 7 spots short it was Tippey's 23rd place finish was the highlight. 25 Teams competed for just 5 state Finals spots Saturday with the Top 15 Individuals no on those Top 5 qualifying teams advancing as individuals. The Golden Eagles as a team exceeded a pair of their pre-Regional rankings of 13th or 14th with a highly respectable 12th place. The best the boys were looking at with Saturday's results was a possible 7th or 8th. Homestead who is ranked #5 in the state won their 2nd straight Super Regional Title. The 12th place by the Golden Eagles was 6th Top 15 team finish the last 8 seasons. The Golden Eagles Saturday were the 2nd best Class 2a school on falling to Class 2a #1 Wabash. The Golden Eagle's who entered the meet as the #2 Class 2a team in the State finished the season having only lost to 1 team smaller than Class 3a all season and a combined 5 Class 3a teams all year. Tippey was the 11th best non-team qualifier finisher on the day to become the 20th individual in the boys program to advance to the State Finals individually. Combined with alums Trenton Sweet and Owen Jackson Tippey became the 5th OHXC Golden Eagle State qualifier the last 5 years. He also, combined with the Lady Eagles program became the 21st State Finals Qualifier the OHXC Program as a whole has had in the last 23 years. Tippey was seeded just around 30th on the day coming in and ran arguably his race of his career to secure the State Finals spot with his 2nd best time ever of 16:28. He was never outside the Top 40 and spent most of the race right around 29th or 30th in a pack moving up down the stretch to secure the win. The Golden Eagles were 1 of about 10 teams competing for that last spot. Junior Wyatt Hart and Sophomore Josh Clark had great days both far exceeding their rankings taking 56th and 66th respectively. Hart had come in ranked in the Top 70 while Clark in the Top 80s-90s. Senior Brayden Sommers battled in 94th as a strong 4th man. Freshman Cooper McQuiston, Junior Eli Leak, and Sophomore Bret Hueston came through nearly together to round out the Top 5 scoring and overall Top 7 in 156th, 158th, and 166th. The Golden Eagles as a team had an outstanding fall. They went undefeated from August 13th through the Central Indiana Conference losing for the 1st time at last week's IHSAA Marion Sectional to Class 3a #1 ranked Yorktown who advanced to State with a 3rd place finish Saturday. They won Invitational titles at Oak Hill, Southwestern, and New Haven as well as collected championships at the Grant 4 and Conference. Tippey will compete Saturday November 1st in the IHSAA State Finals held on the historic Lavern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course at Indiana State University in Terre Haute.