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BRIDGMAN — For Niles’ Aiden Krueger, his senior season has been about winning races and breaking the long-standing cross country record.

Krueger has accomplished one of those goals multiple times this season, while on Saturday at the Berrien County Meet hosted by Bridgman at Lake Township Park, he achieved his second goal.

Krueger ran a time of 15:55.5 to break the 33-year-old record at Niles as he captured the individual title at the Berrien County Meet.

While Krueger was dominating the field, winning the race and breaking the school record, Buchanan brought home the boys’ team championship as the Bucks finished with 72 points to edge River Valley, which had 77 points. Niles finished sixth with 169 points.

“Today at the Berrien County cross country championships was my finest day as a cross country coach ever,” said Niles Coach Tony Todd. “All my runners performed excellent all ran a season best or personal best as a team they really over performed, but what made this my finest day as a coach was my finest runner I’ve ever had the pleasure of Coaching Aiden Krueger beat the entire field by 15 seconds and smashed a 33-year-old Niles cross country record by 10 seconds.”

Todd said it was a team effort in helping Krueger reach his goal.
“I did not coach him to this level by myself, my assistant Jason Todd, along with help from the girls coach Jami Roden, and of course all the support from Mr. and Mrs. Krueger proves it really does take a villiage,” he said. “We have a lot of big meets left, so this may be a short lived greatest coaching moment I feel he still has a lot of room to improve.”

Liam McBeth led the Bucks with an 11th-place finish and a time of 17:42. Britain Philip (13), Jack Sherwood (15), Jacob Kuntz (16) and oy Weinberg (17) all cracked the top 20 for the Bucks, to help lead the team to the championship.

St. Joseph won the girls’ team title with 27 points, while Lakeshore was second with 77, Buchanan third with 99 and Niles fourth with 106. Brandywine finished seventh with 174 points.

The Vikings’ Charlie Drew was fourth overall with a time of 20:22, while teammate Aubrey Jackson finished ninth with a time of 20:53.

“The girls team took fourth place today,” Roden said. “We knew going into the meet that St. Joe and Lakeshore were out of reach, but had high hopes to beat Buchanan. They are having a nice season and have quality runners. Despite losing to them by six points I am extremely pleased with our performance. Charlie Drew ran the best race all season today. Going into this race St. Joe had four girls with better times than Charlie. They are one of the two top teams in Division 2 [Otsego is the other school] right now and she passed their No. 3 and No. 4 runners in the last mile. That is a mental win and the coaching staff couldn’t be more proud of her for that.”

Emma Miller led Buchanan with a 10th-place finish and a time of 20:57. Sydney Olson was the top finisher for the Bobcats as she was 23rd with a clocking of 21:51.

It will be a busy week for the cross country teams Niles travels to Sturgis for a Wolverine Conference tri-meet, while Brandywine will host Buchanan, Dowagiac and Berrien Springs in the final Lakeland Conference jamboree.

On Saturday, Brandywine will compete in the Allegan Invitational, while Niles and Buchanan head to Portage for an invitational.