PREP BOYS TRACK: Northridge picks up NLC wins over Goshen, NorthWood
Apr. 15—NAPPANEE — The Northridge boys track team began its Northern Lakes Conference title defense Thursday by picking up victories over Goshen and NorthWood on a blustery evening at NorthWood High School.
The Raiders beat NorthWood by a team score of 63-42 and Goshen 69-36. NorthWood then edged the RedHawks, 53-52, to bring their NLC record to 1-1. Goshen is 0-2 in conference meets with the two losses.
"It is very nice to start off (with two wins) because, as the champions, we know that you're the one that everyone's going after," Northridge head coach Aaron Brick said. "We have a lot to prove. We lost a lot of good kids and a big senior group ... we're excited we have another large group of seniors this year."
It was one of the windiest days of the year, with gusts of more than 50 miles per hour. Because of that, the pole vault and high jump events were not contested at the meet.
Northridge was led in the meet by two of its top returners from a season ago in seniors Jack Moore and Mason Floria. Moore won both the 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter runs by comfortable margins, while Floria was victorious in the 110-meter hurdles, 300-meter hurdles and the long jump.
"They're both definitely elite athletes in their events in this area," said Brick of Moore and Floria.
For NorthWood, it picked up a strong performance from Brevin Miller, who battled the elements to win both the shot put and discus toss. The Panthers also had a strong showing from junior NiTareon Tuggle, who won the 100-meter dash and was second in the 200-meter sprint.
This is the first spring Tuggle has participated in track, but he's already showing off his natural talent in the sport. He ran the final leg of the 4X100-meter relay, nearly erasing a multi-second deficit to win the race.
"He's getting some conditioning coming off of basketball," said Mikel of Tuggle. "He just started coming out of the blocks three weeks ago, so once we get those starts down, I think he's going to be one of those dominant forces in the region."
For Goshen, it was victorious in one individual event with senior Drew Hogan, who won the 400-meter dash. The RedHawks also had wins in the 4X100-meter relay and the 4X800 relay, which Hogan was a part of.
"We didn't run all of our distance runners in the events they probably should've been in — that probably would've made things a little bit different," Goshen coach Scott Lancaster said. "But we're looking at larger goals. We have some guys that are capable of making the state meet. Drew medaled last year; we're looking for him to medal again. ... We're trying to balance things we can do as a team with guys who have a chance to run and potentially do something at the state meet."
All three head coaches noted that it was one of the windiest events they've ever been a part of, especially given that the wind was blowing directly in the faces of everyone running the sprints and final legs of the distance runs. It was also blowing directly into the athletes doing the long jump.
The elements caused times to not be as good as they could've been, which all three coaches knew would happen starting the night.
"I told the kids before the meet: don't worry about your time," Mikel said. "It's about being competitive, and I think we saw that out of our team. We hung in there. Even when we knew we weren't going to win a race, they still competed and fought for points."
All three teams have quick turnarounds this Saturday with big relay-styled invites. Goshen will head to Fort Wayne North Side for the relays meet there, while Northridge and NorthWood will both head to the Raiders' home track for the Carmon Cripe Relays in Middlebury.
Note: final individual results were not available until after The Goshen News' print deadline due to technical issues. We will try and update the web version of this story later with full event winners and their times. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Austin Hough can be reached at austin.hough@goshennews.com or at 574-538-2360. Follow him on Twitter at @AustinHoughTGN.
