The New Prairie boys cross country team competed in the New Prairie Invitational today on their home course, putting together a strong team performance against a highly competitive field. The Cougars finished 4th as a team with 117 points, with Braden Bachmann leading the way with another outstanding performance. The course conditions made the race especially challenging, as the course was extremely muddy and flooded in several areas. The conditions greatly impacted all of the runners and made for a difficult day of racing. Senior Braden Bachmann won the individual race in 16:07.18. Braden's performance was another historic one on the New Prairie course. His 16:07.18 is the 3rd-fastest time in the New Prairie Invitational historical database dating back to 2006. Braden has also come a long way since his freshman season, when he ran 18:33.71 on the same course. He has now improved by 2 minutes and 26 seconds over his high school career, an incredible progression on a course that was significantly more difficult today due to the conditions. His time was the overall fastest of the day out of the 9 races contested! New Prairie's next four scorers continued to put together a strong team performance. Junior Ayden Carpenter finished 8th in 17:21.94, followed by senior Aidan Jaronik in 27th at 18:05.55. Ayden has made an incredible jump on his home course, improving from 21:52.80 as a freshman to 17:21.94 today, more than four and a half minutes faster. Aidan has also made a tremendous improvement, dropping from 23:50.21 as a freshman to 18:05.55 today, nearly six minutes faster! Senior Isaac True finished 31st in 18:14.42. Isaac's improvement on the New Prairie course has been especially impressive. After running 27:09 as a sophomore, Isaac has now improved by nearly nine minutes, running 18:14.42 today. The Cougars also received solid efforts from their remaining varsity runners. Lukas Hannewyk finished 50th in 18:50.68 to round out the Cougars' scoring five. He was followed by Evan Thibodeau in 53rd at 18:56.61. Chase Shelton ran 19:28.41 to finish 69th, followed by Mitchell Walls at 19:34.71, Ricky Corbett at 20:03.91, and Sullivan Young at 20:16.08. Several of those runners have also made significant strides on the New Prairie course. Chase improved by 3 minutes and 31 seconds from his sophomore year time of 22:59, while Mitchell has dropped more than six and a half minutes from his freshman year time of 26:10.61. Evan has also improved from 19:38.10 as a freshman to 18:56.61 today. The Cougars also had some great performances in the other races. Freshmen Owen Otwinowski and Jackson Firanek both turned in strong efforts in the 9/10 race, finishing 48th and 63rd out of 150 runners. Owen broke the 20-minute mark with a 19:56.97, while Jackson ran a solid 20:47.61. It was great to see both of our freshmen continuing to gain valuable racing experience and competing hard against a large field. In the reserve race, senior Ryese Lake put together another strong effort, finishing 26th out of 144 runners in 20:44.43. All three continue to provide valuable depth for the Cougars and showed a lot of fight on the home course today. New Prairie will be back in action on Saturday, September 26th for the Culver Invitational. A huge thank you to all the families and friends who handled concessions, parking, t-shirt sales, and everything else it takes to put on a meet this size. The coaching staff is grateful for such a strong support system. All of this would not be possible without you. So thank you very much for everything you have done for this program! Full Results: https://www.thtiming.com/2026raceresults.html Check out the all-time home list (and other historical data): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aVM63H2RBD-YZLgUFo_qlZjiEBLNKc8RUS0QWuEf4vg/edit?usp=sharing