Trimming from four sports to two for her senior year opens exciting possibilities for Aubrey Bamber, Chesterton’s first finisher last week at cross country meet where Trojans had four runners under 20 minutes

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

It took Chesterton senior Aubrey Bamber to show that it’s possible for the same person to become both half the athlete and twice the athlete as she was the previous year.
Bamber was a rare four-sport athlete in her junior year, competing in both soccer and cross country in the fall, basketball in the winter and track and field in the spring.
As a senior, Bamber is concentrating on cross country and track and field, and early indications are she will have a much more successful year.
The grind of doing two fall sports a year ago kept her from doing justice to either onem and the guard depth on the basketball team is such that she didn’t have a realistic shot at cracking the rotation this season.
So Bamber decided to go all in on running. Yet, to see her sprint as part of Chesterton’s 4x200 relay team during weekend invitationals and to watch her burn down the runway fast enough to launch 17 feet in the long jump is to assume that she is doing one of her two sports, cross country, to get into shape for the other, track.
False assumption.
Not only was Bamber able to hang with Chesterton’s top cross country runners when they ran as a pack of four for all but the final 600 meters of the 5K cross country race at the Eagle Classic in Brown County, she crossed the finish line ahead of all of them.
Given her speed, it’s not surprising that she was able to outkick sophomores Paige Clancy and Hannah Haring and senior Allison Van Kley. Having the endurance to hang with them before they turned it into a 600-meter race to the finish was the most encouraging aspect of her day.
Bamber ran a 19:47.8. Clancy (19:49.0), Haring (19:51.1) and Van Kley (19:55.4) were close behind. Sophomore Natalie White supplied the fifth and final scoring place, covering the 5,000 meters in 20:25.8.
Not as hilly as most cross country challenges, the Eagle Park Cross Country Course in Nashville lends itself to fast times, but the same can be said of other courses the Trojans have run in recent seasons, so to have four runners under 20 minutes and finish 10th in such a loaded field of 15 teams was impressive.
Chesterton girls cross country and track and field head coach Lindsay Moskalick said it was the first race the Trojans had four girls under 20 minutes since the 2021 team, which had so much talent it finished third at the state meet.
Last Saturday’s field included six schools in the top 10 of the state rankings: 1. Carmel, 3. Bloomington South, 5. Zionsville, 7. Lake Central, 9. Westfield and 10. (Indianapolis) North Central.
Facing that much talent in a race can be demoralizing, but it had the opposite impact on the Trojans, a good sign.
“It was nice, but I couldn’t have done it without us all running together because I feel like I’m still new to this and still figuring out my pace,” Bamber said of her performance. “If I have that much left on the last 600, I can probably go a little bit faster, and I think we all can.”
Bamber ran on the 4x400 relay and the open 400 last spring, as well as the 4x200 relay, which is not run at dual meets. She ran the 300 hurdles early in the season and has tried the 800 meters, but didn’t have enough success in that race for it to become a regular thing. Now that’s she has shown so much improvement at the 3.1-mile distance, it creates exciting possibilities.
“She’s so versatile. That’s one of the things that’s cool about her,” Moskalick said. “She’s a sprinter when she needs to be a sprinter and she’s a distance runner when she needs to be a distance runner. That’s pretty lucky to have on the team, for sure.”
Last season, Bamber missed several practices because of soccer. She feels fresher in participating solely in cross country.
“I’ve seen almost a two-minute improvement in my time,” Bamber said. “I’m not as stressed mentally. It’s easier physically obviously, but I feel like mentally, last year I didn’t want to push myself, especially in cross country.”
Bamber said she is excited to see what she can do in the 800 and the mile in the spring. Even with Van Kley sidelined by injury last spring, the Trojans made it to state in the 4x800 with freshmen Clancy, golfer/basketball player Taylor Kisic, Haring, and senior Veronica Wilgocki delivering in the clutch with a 9:34.83 that landed them in third place at the Portage regional.
The four girls who ran as a pack last Saturday and Kisic give the Trojans five runners for the four spots, which supplies insurance against the possibility of injury to one of the runners.
For now, the focus is on cross country, and the Trojans have a decidedly different challenge ahead of them Saturday at the New Prairie Invitational on a course that has Agony Hill in the middle of it.
New Prairie also is the regional site for schools that participate in the Highland, Chesterton, New Prairie, Goshen and Rensselaer Central sectionals, so Saturday’s meet not only allows runners to preview the course it shapes up as a decent preview of what the regional meet that sends five schools to the state meet might look like.
Eagle Classic team results: 1. Carmel 49, 2. Bloomington South 84, 3. Zionsville 105, 4. Lake Central 133, 5. (Indianapolis) North Central 177, 6. DuPont Manual 184, 7. Floyd Central 220, 8. Morgan Township 221, 9. Bloomington North 233, 10. Chesterton 255, 11. Avon 271, 12. Jasper 279, 13. Edgewood 284, 14. Center Grove 304, 15. Silver Creek 412.
Chesterton: Bamber 19:47.8; Clancy 19:49.0; Haring 19:51.1; Van Kley 19:55.4; White 20:25.8; Evie Fortney 20:37.8; Lauren Kroft 20:46.4; Natalie Williams 21:10.1; Reagan Rex 21:45.5; Natascha Lepinasse 21:56.3.