Fort girls third

FORT RECOVERY — The Fort Recovery High School cross country teams got off to a solid start to the season hosting the Mercer County Meet Monday for the first time.
The Tribe girls placed third out of five teams behind Coldwater and Celina, and the boys team finished fourth out of six.
“They did awesome,” said FRHS coach Michelle Stammen of her girls team. “We’ll continue to get stronger and get better every week. I think we did well.
“I think that was very strong for the first meet,” she added of the boys squad, “much stronger than they have from the years past. I think it’s a promising start for sure.
“The kids are just tickled pink to be able to run on their home course.”
Sophomore Abby May, who was injured for about half of the 2009 season, set the pace for the Indian girls. She finished 10th in the race in 22 minutes, 13 seconds.
Freshman Jessica Vogel, whose sister Mindy was a state qualifier during her junior season, followed May in 11th at 22:18.
“I think now that she has this race in it will help her confidence,” said Stammen of May. “She’ll continue to run stronger because of that.
“Jessica Vogel finished right behind Abby … in fact, they were dueling to the finish. I was very, very impressed with her effort today.”
Elle Sutter was third for the Tribe at 16th overall in 23:01. Nicole Heitkamp finished 19th in 23:36, and Abby Huelskamp was 22nd with a time of 24:08.
Ryan Heitkamp narrowly missed a top-10 effort for the boys team, crossing the finish line in 18:47 for 12th place. Derek Sutter followed in 19th in 19:45, and Calvin Kaiser (20:00) and Caleb Heitkamp (20:02) went back-to-back in 20th and 21st.
Nathan Fullenkamp completed the team score in 24th with a time of 20:30.
In the junior high competition, Fort Recovery’s girls finished second out of four teams, while the boys were last out of three. Paige McCain led the girls in seventh place with a time of 15:19, and A.J. Jutte was 10th for the boys in 14:14.[[In-content Ad]]