Mt. Vernon’s Kean Coy has been named the 2021 Daily Reporter Girls Cross Country Coach of the Year.
Tom Russo | The Daily Reporter
FORTVILLE — Beating the perennial champion and bringing back a trophy that hadn’t found its way to Fortville in quite some time made for a successful season.
The 2021 Daily Reporter Girls Cross Country Coach of the Year, Mt. Vernon’s Kean Coy, and his Marauder team had a lot to like about their year.
In late September, the Marauders dethroned New Palestine, which had won four straight Hancock County team titles.
To start the month of October, they added a first-place finish at the Hoosier Heritage Conference championship in Muncie. It was Mt. Vernon’s first conference title since 2010.
Neither came easy.
At the county meet, held at Eastern Hancock High School, the Marauders beat the Dragons by only five points, 25-30.
New Pal’s Emma Mann won the race, but Marauder seniors Lydia Carrell and Morgan Tharp took the next two spots. MV also had Nos. 5, 7 and 8, with sophomore Alexandria Jenson, junior Megan Cornelius and freshman Emma Gale.
The conference meet was a three-team race. Again, the Marauders found a way to come out on top.
This time Tharp led the way, finishing fourth in 20 minutes, 19 seconds for the 5K race. Carrell was fifth in 20:21. Jenson added an all-conference spot, placing 13th. Mt. Vernon scored 61 points, nine better than Pendleton Heights (70) and 10 better than New Palestine (71).
After a struggle at their home sectional (finishing fourth behind Franklin Central, New Palestine and Roncalli), the Marauders bounced back with a runner-up finish, to Franklin Central, at the Rushville Regional. It earned them a spot at the Shelbyville Semistate, where they finished 18th.
Along with the aforementioned runners, the Marauders got some scoring help throughout the season from freshmen Julia Iserloth and Tenley Benz along with senior Alex Overshiner.
“It’s always a goal to win the county, win the conference and win the sectional and go as far as you can in the tournament,” Coy said. “I feel by winning the county for the first time in a long time and winning the conference for the first time since 2010, that was a big step in the right direction.
“I’m pretty happy with the season overall. I would have liked to have finished higher at the semistate.”
Carrell and Tharp shared that No. 1 spot.
Tharp won the early-season Arabian Roundup in mid-August, an event Carrell won last season but was unable to participate in this year. Tharp finished as MV’s No. 1 runner at conference and sectional. Carrell took the spot for the regional and semistate.
The top-two seniors were more than leading at the races, they were overall team leaders to a youthful group of Marauders that were being asked to score points in big meets.
The team bought into Coy’s philosophy on training and supporting each other and it all started with Tharp and Carrell leading the way.
“Morgan Tharp and Lydia Carrell really took the bull by the horns and showed those other girls what it meant to be upper-level cross country runners in Indiana really helped. Their leadership was key to most of the success we had throughout the year.”
