On October 1st the Portage boys high school cross country team won the Duneland Athletic Conference for the first time since 2004. Ideas in motion media publisher, Chris Mahlmann, caught up with the Coach Tom Erickson, Coach Brian Kim, and a couple of runners to talk about the big win.
Chris Mahlmann: I'll start with the coaches. Just tell me a bit about Saturday. It was one heck of a win. 2004, I think was your last one?
Coach Tom Erickson: We knew that we were able to compete with these guys and we were just gonna fire everyone up to do their job and they did.
Chris: Who was the rock solid runner that absolutely came through and made sure they did their part, stepped up, and got you over the hump?
Coach Tom Erickson: Our seniors always lead the way for us, they set the tone. We had a lot of strong efforts up and down from Kyle who stepped up and was our third man this week, and we had big efforts out of Tommy and Dylan and Nate, and Rauel did well too. It was a whole team effort. It was just nice kinda just seeing everybody compete close to the level where we are able to. We're not there yet, but it was good to see us compete.
Chris: After that long of a period without a championship, it looked like there was a pretty emotional release afterwards, like: "Holy cow we really did it!"
Coach Tom Erickson: For the coaches, yeah, it was emotional. As coaches it's kind of our job to keep an even keel to a degree. But both of us are alumni (even our other assistant coach) so we know how special it is, and it was emotional. I think we all felt that. For me watching them and seeing how emotional they were about it, I could see the seniors were finally having some sort of validation for all their efforts.
Chris: Can you share your experience as a coach winning the DAC?
Coach Brian Kim: I ran for him in high school and when I was in my junior and senior year we were kinda rock-bottom, pretty much the worst the program's ever been. When I was in college, I came back to support the team a lot. Just finally getting over the hump was great, because for the last several years we've had trouble getting over the hump.
Chris: Who wants to speak on behalf of the seniors? What did Saturday mean to you?
Tony Ochapa: It meant a lot to me, obviously all the emotions that we show afterwards, all I could do after we won was cry. Everything that happened Saturday was because of our work over the span of three years. It was a struggle trying to get everything put together to finally do something like this. It took a long time, and it finally happened. Hard work does pay off. It might not happen when you want it to but it'll definitely pay off when you keep working on it.
Chris: Speaking on behalf of the younger guys, what did Saturday mean to you?
Kyle Gutierez: I think it meant a lot. In middle school, me and the other freshman, Tommy, we sorta went back and forth winning those meets and individually I never felt it was enough just to win by myself. I always wanted to win as a team and really at Fegley we didn't. So, it felt great to come together as a team and really show what we could do.
Chris: Right at the end, you were literally neck and neck with a Valpo runner as far as I understand?
Tommy Elwood: Yeah it was a good race, I felt pretty good. Coach was always telling us before that Valpo is the favorite, we need to go get Valpo. I was running pretty hard at that time. It felt good to get him and just pass him and go.
Click here to see photos of the 2016 DAC Cross Country Championship Meet!