It’s still in the back of their minds.

The Chesterton girls cross country team missed out on a berth in last year’s IHSAA State Finals on a technicality and they haven’t forgotten.

“Our main goal is to get back down to State,” Chesterton coach Brian Carden said. “I think it’s still in the back of everybody’s mind. It comes up every once in a while when we’re talking at practice. I think we’ve had our best attendance over the summer that I can remember.

“Everybody wants to get started and put that behind us.”

The Trojans open the season tonight when they travel to LaPorte for the Jack Bransford Invitational.

Sophomore Melanie Buckmaster is the top returning runner for the Trojans. She finished 20th in the Semistate at New Prairie last year, but was disqualified because she wasn’t wearing a timing chip.

“I think Melanie can take that lead spot for us,” Carden said. “She’s our most consistent kid in practice. I believe she’ll step into that position.”

Chesterton should have a “pack” mentality this season with the return of letterwinners Jenna Norgaard, Kim St. Pierre, Molly Stauffer and Linda Graff. Talented newcomers Abby Culbertson, Nora Schultz and Haley Cushway also figure into the mix.

“I think it’ll be a good pack and then see if we can get a frontrunner,” Carden said. “I think we’ll be better than last year. I think we’ll be pretty solid if things work out the way I expect.”

The Trojans will get tested early as they run in the Carmel Classic and at Ben Davis before getting into the tough DAC schedule that put four teams in the State Finals last year.

“We’ll see some big schools early in the season and we may get beat pretty badly, but we can see what we need to do to get better,” Carden said. “Our conference is still really strong with Portage, Valparaiso, Crown Point and Lake Central. There were four teams from the DAC in the State Finals.

“But, I feel pretty confident we can compete.”

Posted 8/24/2010