The Great Pumpkin gets a Shiner at age 12

Gary Franklin - Sports Writer

On Thursday eve, September 22, South Ripley High school was host for the running of the 12th Great Pumpkin Annual Varsity Co-ed Cross Country Invitational, where the Rising Sun Shiners captured both team events. The Lady Shiners with a team score of 33 points laid claim to the girls' segment of the meets' team honors, first place title and trophy. The boys ' Shiner team also won later in the event with a team score of 57, capturing first place honors and the trophy as well for their effort.

In the boys event, Brad Fortuna of the South Dearborn Knights crossed the finish line first with a time of 18:05. Second place was taken by Kyle Horan of JCD in 18:27. Third at 18:42 was Erik Demaree running the event on his 16th birthday. Fourth to cross the finish line was Shiner runner, Justin Craig with a time of 18:55, followed in fifth by the South Ripley Raiders effort by Ariel Lawburgh with a 19:00 even finishing time.

For sixth place, Justin Eaton of JCD at 19:02, seventh to Jim Abbott, representing the first Switzerland County runner to cross the finish line at the time of 19:06. Kenny LeVille of Madison Shawe in 19:17 was the first Hilltopper for an eighth place outing and at the ninth place was Shiner Cody Grace with a time of 19:24. Rounding out the top ten boys to complete the course was Josh Snow of Switzerland County with a time of 19:26.

A pair of Shiners took the 11th and 12th spots, Scott Cummings 19:28, and Brandon Siekman 19:29. In 13th Andrew Wagner of JCD at 19:45, and the South Dearborn Knights - Joey Flanagan 19:49 and Matt Wells 19:53 took 14th and 15th.

Making the top 20 of the 41 boys running the event were: 16th- Blake Sutton of JCD-19:55; 17th-Jared Keck of South Ripley-20:01; 18th-Zach Getz of Switzerland County-20:04: 19th-Casey Weber of South Dearborn-20:05, and the 20th to finish with the time of 20:09, from Madison Shawe was Joey LeVille.

The girls portion of
The Great Pumpkin Invitational

Caitlin Sauerhage captured the first place finish for the Lady Shiners in the girls race with the time of 16:32. Watching the race unfold Sauerhage started out front and never looked back. Shiner teammate Caitlyn Bowman finished in second place with a time of 17:21. South Dearborn finished in the third and fourth spots with runners Kristal Studer at 17:37 and Karsen Manning at 18:24, followed by Jac-Cen-Del's Alisha Lord in a time of 18:32.

Melanie Berry of South Ripley was the first Lady Raider to cross the line, in the time of 18:39 for sixth place. Rising Sun's Missi Menke took seventh with 18:53 followed in eighth by Jessie Ingels of the Lady South Dearborn Knight squad at the time of 18:55. At 19:00 Rebecca Dean of South Dearborn took the ninth place finish, and in tenth was Amber Lunsford of Jac-Cen-Del finishing at 19:08.

Finishing in 11th thru 15th from the 32 competitors running the race.

Taking 11th and 12th spots for Rising Sun were; Shelby McNeese - 19:10 and Ashley McClure - 19:11; for South Dearborn in 13th Mackenzie Stuart - 19:13 and 14th Anna Loveland - 19:20; and Rising Sun captured the 15th spot with Courtney Lampkin - 19:23.