Lady Indians repeat as regional champs; individuals also advance to state meet

By ROB HAMILTON

The Mount Gilead girls’ cross coun­try team repeated as Divi­sion III regional cham­pi­ons on Sat­ur­day at Pick­er­ing­ton North.

The Lady Indi­ans fin­ished with 92 points, while second-place Gar­away tal­lied 101. Colum­bus Acad­emy (104) and Grand­view Heights (110) were the other two state-qualifying teams.

Mount Gilead cap­tured their title due to strong pack run­ning. While the team only had one run­ner place in the top 20 in the race, six of their seven were in the top 50.

Senior Ray­chel Gress led the way by plac­ing 14th in 20:01.8. Bryanna Bolha was next across the fin­ish line, as she took 23rd place in 20:35.37.

Jenna Ship­man fin­ished 29th in 20:52 and Rachel Bush took 30th in 20:58.43, while Maken­zie McKir­gan rounded out the team’s scor­ing run­ners by plac­ing 37th in 21:20.67.

Taryn Chap­man took 44th in 21:41.96 and Sophia Friesen ran 60th in 22:11.99 to round out the Indian runners.

Over the course of two regional meets held at Pick­er­ing­ton North and Troy, three more Mor­row County run­ners earned trips to the state meet as individuals.

In the same Pick­er­ing­ton Divi­sion III race that Mount Gilead com­peted in, Northmor’s Dani Blum earned her fourth trip to the state meet.

Blum fin­ished her senior year regional meet with a second-place fin­ish in 19:10.64 to make it back to Hebron.

The North­mor team just missed out on a trip to the state meet, as they fin­ished fifth with 138 points to fall 28 points shy of the fourth and final state berth.

Kayla Duryea was the sec­ond Knight run­ner to fin­ish, as she placed 33rd in 21:07.59. Kendall Fout took 46th in 21:42.94 and Isabelle Dit­ul­lio ran 51st in 21:58.48.

Kelly Pope fin­ished 71st in 22:31.75, while Bri­anna Heminger placed 77th in 22:46.2 and Katie Bur­son claimed 103rd in 24:39.75 to round out the North­mor squad.

In the regional held at Troy, both Logan Eber­sole of High­land and Jacob Long of Card­ing­ton advanced to the state meet.

In the Divi­sion II boys’ race, Eber­sole, a junior, fin­ished 15th in 17:11.5. The top 16 fin­ish­ers in each race reach the state meet. For the Scots, Eber­sole is the first boy to reach the state meet since 2003.

The High­land boys’ team fin­ished 14th in the meet. Kevin Jones placed 74th in 18:21.47, while Devin John­son took 82nd in 18:32.42.

Josh Irvin fin­ished 100th in 19:07.14. Layne Bur­son was 114th in 20:39.48 and Nick Parks placed 115th in 20:50.28. Also, Jonah Maggs ran 123rd in 23:25.85.

In Troy’s Divi­sion III boys’ meet, Cardington’s Long ran sixth in 16:55.33 to qual­ify for the state meet as a fresh­man. His Pirate team fin­ished 10th overall.

Mitch Yake took 37th in 17:51.69, while Mike Queener ran 71st in 18:29.82 and Josh Queener placed 102nd in 19:23.37.

Seth Vaught took 114th in 19:52.71 and Jared Gan­de­lot ran 121st in 20:30.92. Also, Matt Queener fin­ished 126th in 21:49.31.

The Mount Gilead boys’ team and Gilead Christian’s Caleb Mosher also com­peted in the Pick­er­ing­ton regional

The Indi­ans placed sev­enth in their Divi­sion III race, fin­ish­ing 15 points away from a trip to the state meet.

Sopho­more Tyler Beck also just missed out as an indi­vid­ual, as he placed 17th in 17:27.12 to fall one place short of qualification.

Jason Hea­cock took 21st in 17:35.02, while Josh Wood­dell ran 34th in 17:59.9. Grant Picker placed 54th in 18:25.22.

Also, Nic Pomeroy was 70th in 18:51.73, Logan Chap­man fin­ished 88th in 19:26.08 and Cam­den West took 89th in 19:27.49.

For the Eagles, Mosher ran 25th in 17:38.79 on Saturday.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Oct 31 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.