Ray Hundt’s ahead-of-schedule return, Spencer Martin competing again, and William Morgan improvement all key elements in Chesterton winning DAC boys cross country championship

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

Chesterton distance runner Ray Hundt had the worst seat in the house at the track and field regional that Chesterton’s boys team won last spring.
He was seated in a wheelchair, fresh off labrum surgery on both hips and dealing with being told he would not be recovered in time to participate in cross country.
To appreciate what difficult news that was for him to absorb, consider that Hundt loves cross country so much that for a school project he designed a course on the Chesterton campus, part of it snaking through the woods east of the tennis courts.
Adhering strictly to the physical rehabilitation plan charted for him, sometimes rigorous, other times monotonous, Hundt defied the odds and there he was scoring points for his team at the DAC boys cross country championship Saturday at Kesling Park in LaPorte.
Hundt had just been cleared the previous week to run a full 5,000-meter race. Before that, he was restricted to running for no longer than eight minutes in a row. That’s why he could be spotted walking for a minute, doctor’s orders, in the middle of races.
Running the whole DAC race with fellow senior William Morgan, Hundt finished 12th and shared a 16:46.3 time with Morgan, who placed 11th.
“Longest four months of my life. For three of them, I couldn’t run,” Hundt said. “I was still at practice, but having to watch everyone run around me, I just wanted to be out there doing it again. It was rough, but it was necessary.”
At the Larry James Invitational, the courageous Hundt covered the 5,000-meter course at Sunset Hill Farm, but he did so riding shotgun to retired coach Steve Kearney, who was at the wheel of the lead vehicle, a gator.
Hundt won’t be seated next to Kearney when the Trojans return to Sunset Hill to run in the sectional on Oct. 18.
“Obviously, during the race, that was probably one of hardest races that I’ve ever had to perform at, but it feels great to have done it and I know I can do it again,” Hundt said of the DAC meet. “I’m going to go with William and it’s going to be great.”
Morgan has shown determination in seeking improvement of late.
“He’s kind of been a 6, 7 guy, but give him credit,” head cross country coach Tom Moeller said. “He started coming in the morning, putting in a little extra mileage. He and Ray are good friends. Ray may have had an impact on the rest of the team, but his major impact was on William Morgan. The fact that Ray was back in the fold pulled him into the competitive side of the sport.”
Morgan is no longer using cross country primarily as a means to whip himself into shape for the 4x800 relay. The personal best time he produced Saturday on the flat course proved that.
Hundt did everything possible to give himself a chance to compete well Saturday, but still, he knew how hard he was going to run and knew that would put his hips through more than they had been asked to do to that point.
“I woke up and was a little worried that it was going to be kind of sore, but I took extra care to stretch and do extra mobility than I have before and I felt great the whole way, kept my head out of it,” Hundt said.
Seeing Hundt return in such impressive fashion and watching Morgan’s extra training translate so well to competition weren’t the only uplifting developments for the Trojans.
Junior Spencer Martin, who last season ran the second-fastest time by a sophomore of any Chesterton cross country runner this century, competed for the first time since Sep. 13 at the Eagle Classic in Brown County. Martin has battled hip and shin injuries and rested in the summer. His shin trouble has kept him out recently, and he returned with a fifth-place finish Saturday.
“I felt it. I felt it,” Martin said. “It didn’t feel amazing, but it’s something I can manage. If I do it right, I shouldn’t get injured, and after the season I can take some more time off and try to get fully healed.”
Moeller predicted Martin will “get better from here on out. He hadn’t run for three weeks until Wednesday. He had been either on the elliptical or the bike or in the pool the past three weeks.”
During that time, Martin said, he was “training hard. It was bike, elliptical, aqua jogging, swimming. It’s every morning, every afternoon. I’m just trying to get back the best way I can.”
All of those therapy elements were helpful to Hundt during his intense road to recovery.
Junior Ryan Nix, who became individual DAC champion Saturday, defeating Lake Central’s Ben Perschon by almost 11 seconds, said it was “great” to have Hundt and Martin back.
“The rest of us have been able to run all summer, but the two of them had been going through injuries, so their consistency looked different from outs because our consistency is we’re going to run every day,” Nix said. “But theirs is, ‘OK, I have to bike today, then I’ve got to swim, and maybe I’ll be able to run a few miles here.’ So, for them to finally be able to go full-out again and come back like this after not being able to consistently run but were consistently doing stuff to get better is great.”
Martin called Hundt’s return “amazing. To be able to come back from surgery that quickly and become a staple of this team almost immediately, it’s incredible.”
Chesterton’s big DAC accomplishment vaulted the team into the Indiana Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches top 25 at No. 24. No. 18 Penn and No. 25 Lowell are the only other schools from the New Prairie regional appearing the poll that was released today. Crown Point, which finished second at the DAC meet, dropped from 23rd to out of the rankings. Concord does not appear in the rankings but finished fourth at the New Prairie Invitational on Sep. 20 when Chesterton, competing without Martin and with Hundt walking part of the race, finished sixth.
The top five finishers at the New Prairie regional on Oct. 25, advance to the state meet.
If all runners remain healthy, Chesterton will compete with four juniors (Nix, Martin, Nick Jakel and Nolan Harrington) and seniors Morgan, Hundt and Will Roberson.
The Trojans will miss the seniors next season, but all that’s required to realize that 2026 has the potential to be more a reload than a rebuild is a peek at the DAC JV results. Sophomores Xander Sierazy (17:34.6) and Aaron Pieters (17:44.0) claimed the top two spots, and Chesterton finished second to Crown Point on a tiebreaker.