Columbus North’s Jace Works runs toward the finish line during the Brown County Sectional Oct. 14 at Eagle Park in Nashville.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
After sustaining heavy graduation losses from state powerhouse boys and girls cross-country teams, Columbus North hasn’t fallen far.
After all, the Bull Dogs had runners in the works. Jace and Tristan Works, to be exact.
The brother-and-sister duo have helped solidify the Bull Dog boys and girls lineups as first-time varsity runners this season. The oldest two of Clint and Tania (Payne) Works’ children have played key roles in North’s advancement to Saturday’s Boys and Girls Cross Country State Finals.
“Our dad was a runner in high school (at Rising Sun), and he went to the state meet and everything, so it kind of started there,” Jace said. “Then in elementary school, they had the Girls On the Run and the boys Trailblazers elementary program, and we had a friend’s mom that kind of ran it, so we joined and it just kind of took off from there.”
Jace, a sophomore, and Tristan, a freshman, both ran at Northside Middle School. Last year, Jace was a JV runner for a program that finished fourth in the state. Now, he’s the No. 3 runner for the state’s eighth-ranked team.
“As you watch them run track, we knew he would be good, but you don’t know how well it translates to 5K,” North coach Rick Sluder said. “So we knew he would be strong, but to be in our top three, that’s been awesome and really kind of has separated us from other teams right now, having that third person right around 16:00.”
Jace has improved his 5,000-meter (3.1-mile) personal best from 18 minutes, 20 seconds last year to 16:05 this season.
“I’ve had an over two-minute PR this year, so it’s a lot different,” Jace said. “What I was running in practice last year are like easy days now. It’s just crazy to see what I’ve come from. It’s pretty cool just to think that I can contribute to one of the best teams in Indiana and be part of the legacy that we live.”
Columbus North’s Tristan Works makes her way through the Brown County Sectional Oct. 14 at Eagle Park in Nashville.
Tommy Walker | For The Republic
Tristan has been the 19th-ranked Bull Dogs’ No. 6 runner the latter part of the season and was even in their top five a couple of meets.
“Coming from middle school was a big jump,” Tristan said. “I didn’t expect to be on varsity my first year. I kind of just worked hard in practice and made sure I got a lot out of the workouts. I think it’s really cool just because I’m a freshman, and most people don’t expect freshmen to be on varsity for such a good cross-country team.”
“I got to watch her a lot with my kids racing at Northside, so we knew she had talent,” Sluder added. “I would say that it’s a little bit of a surprise, but we knew she could be pretty good stepping in and scoring for us a couple times. Her and another freshman (Emma Lowther) have been kind of what kept us afloat and kept us in that No. 2 spot in the regional.”
Tristan also played basketball in middle school, but gave up that sport this year to focus on cross-country and track. Jace had played basketball in elementary school before focusing on running.
“He started (running) a year before me, and then I kind of took off of his lead and started running,” Tristan said.
Now, their younger sisters, fourth-grader Kyndal and second-grader Kinsey are taking up the sport. Kyndal won one of the elementary school races this fall.
At the high school level, the boys and girls take turns running first every year, and this year, the boys are running before the girls. That means the girls sometimes are warming up while the boys run their race, and the boys sometimes are doing their cooldown while the girls are running their race. But they still get to see a lot of each other’s races.
“It kind of just depends on where we run our warmup and cooldown,” Tristan said. “If we run our warmup around the course, then we get to see them, and we would stop for maybe a couple minutes before we get going again.”
“When we cool down, we try to cool down on the course, and we get to cheer them on and everything,” Jace added.
With the boys state meet starting at Noon on Saturday and the girls not starting until 2:30 p.m., the teams will have plenty of opportunity to watch each other on the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute.
While hoping to help their teams to top-five boys and top-10 girls finishes, Jace and Tristan hope to run personal bests at the state meet.
“I want to try to be top 50 and run under 16:00,” Jace said.
“I want to stay with some of our top runners and get low 20s, maybe even under 20,” Tristan said.
