Saline Boys Win Fourth Straight Cross Country Regional

The all-terrain Saline Hornets raced their way to a fourth straight regional championship at Lake Erie Metropark Saturday.

Senior Nick Renberg was individual champion, finishing the wet and muddy course in 17:03.45 to cross the finish line 15 seconds faster than runner-up Ahron Gunn, of Woodhaven. Saline senior Spencer Bishop placed third in 17:22.08.

Freshman Logan Wetzel (6th, 17:38.69), junior Grant Praschan (7th, 17:39.53), and junior Anthony Lamus (9th, 17:44.72) rounded out the scoring for the Hornets and earned individual all-region honors. Saline finished with 26 points, 44 better than second place Bedford.

Juniors Andrew Kitto (17th, 17:55.53) and Dylan Jennings (24th, 18:14.83) also ran for Saline.

The Hornets weren't running in the most competitive region but head coach Carl Spina said the tough conditions were a blessing in disguise.

"It wasn't a super tough field for us, so that allowed us to keep our focus on (next week's) state meet. But the nice part was we had tough conditions which allowed us to focus on running, so we had to be tough, mentally," said Spina. "Sometimes it's spread out and lonely and you still have to run hard on your own."

Renberg, who led the race from beginning to end, did a lot of running hard on his own. He talked about running through the puddles and the mud.

"It felt like a 10K, it was so muddy and slow. I just kept pounding it in," Renberg said. "You just have to have confidence in yourself, your teammates and your training and do the best you can with what God gives you."

Spina said it was fun to watch Renberg run today.

"There were guys who chasing him down early, but he's just strong enough that even in these conditions, which don't really benefit a skinnier guy like Nick, he was able to run away from them late in the race," Spina said. "He's that talented, he's trained that well and he's that mentally tough."

Spina hoped Bishop would catch Gunn for second place.

"Spencer's a tough kid and as mentally tough as they come. I'm guessing he just didn't have it today. It just wasn't in the cards," Spina said.

Perhaps the biggest development of the day was the narrowing of the gap between the Hornets' 3-4-5 runners. Just six seconds separated Wetzel, Praschan and Lamus, who seems to have answered the Hornets' call for a consistent number-five runner.

"Our fifth man has been an issue all year. Anthony Lamus was right there with our third and fourth place runners today. You can't have your fifth man way back. At Portage, we had strong races from our top three but our fifth man was way, way back, so we took second," Spina said.

Lamus said he's been working on trying to help the team find it's number five. He said that his strong race was partly due to the work of Kitto and Jennings, the six and seven runners.

"There's some kind of chemistry we have that when we work together, we race like monsters," Lamus said. "It's a great dynamic we have."

The Hornets race at the state meet Saturday at Michigan International Speedway.