By By SCOTT NOVAK and ERIKA PICKLES / Niles Daily Star
NILES - Portage Northern and Portage Central captured the Big 16 Conference cross country championships in the boys' and girls' divisions respectively on Saturday.
The Huskies scored 67 points to capture the boy's championship. Coldwater was second with 72 points and Mattawan third with 110 points.
Kalamazoo Central (152), Kalamazoo Loy Norrix (156), Sturgis (159), Battle Creek Harper Creek (180), Battle Creek Lakeview (243), Portage Central (251) and Marshall (251) rounded out the top 10 finishers.
Niles finished 11th with 252 points and Dowagiac 13th with 276 points.
The Lady Mustangs edged Marshall for the girl's championship, 74-79.
Coldwater finished third with 99 points, while Battle Creek Lakeview and Lakeshore were fourth and fifth with 115 and 124 points respectively.
Loy Norrix was sixth (142), St. Joseph seventh (184), Sturgis eighth (192), Kalamazoo Central ninth (245) and Niles 10th (254).
Dowagiac did not field a full team.
Kalamazoo Central's Ryan Grau was the overall boy's winner with a time of 15:53. Portage Central's Nick Olson was second with a time of 15:56.
Jason Tabbert finished 30th for Dowagiac with a time of 17:17.
Evan Bressler was 54th with a time of 18:12, while Adam Hess was 56th (18:16), Brad Lee 64th (18:27), Andrew Cuthbert 72nd (18:38), Clay Hewitt 82nd (18:51) and Oscar Azevedo 92nd (19:28).
Steve Scally led Niles with a 27th place finish and a time of 17:13.
Andrew Karsten finished 36th (17:37), Daniel Geiger 52nd (18:11), Nate Allison 68th (18:34), Brett Ortiz 69th (18:36), Nick Schuck 76th (18:45) and Andrew Wuthnow 90th (19:17) for the Vikings.
Lisa Keyte of Portage Central was the overall girl's winner with a time of 18:59.
Lakeview's Stephanie Essenmacher was second with a time of 19:14.
Dowagiac's Katie Hewitt finished 92nd with a time of 26:37.
Catie Hamilton finished 94th with a time of 27:13, while Moneisha Clabin and Ashley Willis finished 96th and 97th with times of 28:20 and 29:49 respectively.
Niles' Samantha Brawley finished ninth with a time of 19:49.
Elizabeth VandenHeede was 28th (20:44), Autumn Grayson 52nd (22:06), Nikki Horvath 75th (23:35), Tami Madison 90th (25:49) and Mehgen Flynn 92nd (26:47) for the Vikings.
"We had a near perfect running day with cool weather, no wind and a fast course- that along with the stiff competition brought out the best in the girls and we had a lot of personal bests," Nil.es girl's head coach Dan VandenHeede said. "Sam Brawley earned all-conference honors with a ninth place finish. She ran under 20 minutes for the 5K, only the second time she has done this and just a few seconds off her PR.”
VandenHeede also noted tha Liz VandenHeede, Autumn Grayson and Nikki Horvath all had personal bests and that the last three girls have been fighting various injuries in the past few weeks and were not running at their peak.
The Vikings will run the same course next Saturday for the regional meet.
The top 15 individual at regionals qualify for the state meet.