Ben Traylor

Junior Izza Khuram (1062) leads the pack at MIC Championship meet at Ben Davis High School on Sept. 23. Carmel finished in first place at the meet, continuing a streak that has lasted over a decade.

After completing the regular season atop the MIC, the women’s cross country team is preparing for the Sectional post-season playoff for the chance to advance to Regionals the following weekend. Both matchups will take place at White River Elementary School in Noblesville, beginning Oct. 14. 

“A goal we set this year was to win both the County and Conference titles, and we did both convincingly,” Head Coach Andy Dalton said. “The MIC Conference title was especially fun to see because some of our up and coming runners were able to step up and solidify our team victory. We are hoping to push the team to achieve in the postseason. This includes another State Championship.  That won’t be easy to do because there is some terrific competition this year across the State against teams like Carroll High School, but our team is ready to compete.

Fort Wayne’s Carroll led the state in first place meet finishes this year. As a result, this is the first time Carmel has entered the post-season as underdogs since 2009. However, the Greyhounds continued to improve the team throughout the year, emphasizing personal growth in order to build a strong team.

“The most exciting result for me was that 99 of our 135 runners achieved a personal record (PR) during this season,” Dalton said. “One of our goals as a team was to make sure that every athlete was improving as a runner and to have this many PRs in one season is just terrific.”

According to junior Anna Morozov, who achieved her own PR this season, the team morale is cautious but remains high heading into the Sectional.

“The coaches just told us yesterday who was running this weekend and we have a super good squad,” Morozov said. “We’re all very confident for our team going into the Sectional. But we do face another ‘threat’ by the time we get to the Regional meet, and that’s Zionsville. They’ve been on the rise all year and did really well at their last meet. So we’ll be watching out for them throughout the postseason.”

Beyond local rivals like Zionsville, the team still only trails Carroll High School in likelihood to take home the state title.

We won’t see Carroll (High School) until State,” Morozov said. “We’ll just have to see how prepared we are to win.”