Congratulations to the 2024 Carmel Girls Cross Country for winning the IHSAA State Championship. On 11/2/24 at LaVern Gibson Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, IN, the Greyhounds outdistanced Fort Wayne Concordia Lutheran High School by 16 points (76-92) to win their 9th meet of the season and bring the state cross country title back to Carmel for the first time since 2020. In having 5 runners under 19:00, the Greyhounds charted the 7th fastest top time through 5 runners since the meet’s inception in 1982. Leading the way for Carmel was the trio of Larkin Taylor(So.), Sadie Foley (Jr.), and Annabel Pollert (So.) who recorded All-State performances by placing 10th, 12th, and 17th respectively. Their times of 18:01, 18:03, and 18:08 neutralized Concordia’s 1st and 8th place finishes. Sealing the deal for the Greyhounds was Freshman, Margo Halle (37th/18:41) and Senior, Ella Gaddis(50th/18:50). Seniors Olivia Mundt(71st/19:01) and Katy Dascoli (139th/19:51) brought it home for the TEAM. Halle, Gaddis, and Dascoli were running in their 1st State Meet. Foley had her 2nd straight all-state performance (19th in 2023), and Mundt was running in her 4th state meet. In 3 previous appearances, TEAMS she ran on were 2nd, 3rd, and 7th. This was the 20th TEAM State Championship for the Greyhounds. First year Carmel Greyhound coach, Scott Williams, had been out of coaching since 2008 having previously been the head boys coach at Ben Davis High School where his teams claimed the 1995 State Boys IHSAA Championship and were team runners-up in 1996. In 2000, he moved on to be the head women’s and men’s coach at Division 1 IUPUI. In coaching the Carmel Girls Cross Country program to the 2024 state title, he becomes the first coach in Indiana History to coach a winning boy’s and girl’s team to a state title at different schools. An IHSAA individual cross country champion himself in 1984, he is the first and only person in IHSAA history to have won a state cross country title, coached an individual champion (Fasil Bizuneh of Ben Davis in 1996) and have coached winning teams to IHSAA Championships (Ben Davis and Carmel).