The Indiana girls state cross country record had stood at 17:06.7 since 2023. Daphne Weller took 14.5 seconds off it on Saturday, and the runner-up finished 14.6 seconds behind her.
Weller, a junior at Fort Wayne Concordia Lutheran, won the IHSAA girls championship at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute in 16:52.2 for 5,000 meters, per the IndyStar. WANE-TV also reported the time as a state meet record. That is about 5:26 per mile.
The Old Record and the Field Behind Her
The previous state meet mark was 17:06.7 by Indian Creek's Libby Dowty in 2023. Terre Haute North sophomore Addyson Bautista was second on Saturday in 17:06.8, and Hamilton Southeastern junior Anya Zoeller was third in 17:08.0, so the second- and third-place times would each have been within a second of the old record. Carmel's Annabel Pollert (17:21.8) and Columbia City's Kenya Leitch (17:26.0) rounded out the top five. Leitch had beaten Weller by 21 seconds at a meet on Sept. 16.
Weller's progression is the number that tells the story. She was eighth at this meet as a freshman in 17:56.00, per the IHSAA's 2024 report, when her sister Mallory won the title in 17:12.19. She was fifth as a sophomore. On Saturday she ran more than a minute faster than her freshman time and 20 seconds faster than her sister's winning time two years ago.
A Move Between the 2K and 3K
Weller sat off the early pace and made her move on the stretch between the two- and three-kilometer marks, then ran alone to the finish, per the IndyStar. Her coach is Scott Steffen. Mallory Weller is now a freshman at North Carolina State.
Lake Central won its first girls team title with 136 points, ahead of Homestead (151) and two-time defending champion Carmel (176). Weller has one more cross country season at Concordia, and the record she just set is the one she will be chasing. More from the fall season is on the BallerTube cross country page.
