Fort Recovery girls are Invite champs (04/09/05)

FORT RECOVERY — They are small in numbers. But they defended their Fort with a ferocity.

The seven members of the Fort Recovery girls track team racked up nine victories Friday night to win the Fort Recovery Invitational championship. It was the first home meet for the Indians this season.

They scored 142 points, finishing well ahead of runner-up Tri-County North (91) and third-place Fairlawn (78).

The Tribe boys had a solid showing as well, placing second to Tri-County North, 175-120. Riverside was third with 83 points.

“I was very happy with all of our performances tonight,” said FRHS coach Jessica Faller. “We turned out with very good performances in both the field events and the running events on both sides — boys and girls. I was really happy with everybody tonight.”

Senior Kristi Westgerdes led the Fort Recovery girls as she continued her streak of perfection to start the year. She had not been beaten in either the 100- or 200-meter dash in the first three Tribe meets, and Friday night was no exception.

She dominated both races, finishing ahead of Riverside’s Amy Arnett and Fairlawn’s Amanda Francis in each. Her win in the 100 came in 13.53 seconds, and she took the 200 in 28.25.

But, Westgerdes didn’t stop with the sprints, winning three events for the second straight meet. After finishing first in the long jump at the Franklin Monroe Invitational Tuesday, she did so again Friday night with a leap of 14 feet, four inches.

“I think a lot of it is senior experience,” said Faller. “I think a lot of it is wanting to run hard for her senior year too.”

Backing up the team’s lone senior were a couple of sophomores — Vicki Roessner and Holly Stein.

Roessner fought off Tri-County North’s Laura Green in the 100 hurdles, winning by 13 hundredths in 17.49. She then dominated the 300 hurdles in 51.64.

Stein took care of the throwing events to give the Indians three field-event wins. She tossed nearly two feet further than anyone else in the shot put at 36 feet, one inch, and won the discus at 91 feet, 10 inches. She was also third in the long jump behind Westgerdes and Sarah Girod of Fairlawn.

Mindy Vogel came through with the other individual win for Fort Recovery, cruising in six seconds ahead of the field in the 400 dash in 1-minute, 6.98 seconds.

Vogel also keyed the Tribe’s win in the 4x400 relay as she soared out to a big lead on the opening leg. Stein, Stefanie Schuessler and Roessner never let anyone get close as they took a 12-second victory in 4:39.70.

“We had nine firsts tonight, and we placed real high in all of the events,” said Faller. “I was real pleased.”

The boys team didn’t fool around when it picked up its first running victory of the night. In that race, the 400 dash, they not only took first, but second as well.

Teammates Shawn Stein and Eric Lamm broke out of the final turn side-by-side and remained so down the home stretch. Stein just got the edge, winning in 56.79 with Lamm second at 57.15.

Lamm earned a victory of his own later in the 800 run despite trailing with about 50 meters to go. Joe Finney of Tri-County North ran out of gas at that point, and Lamm surged ahead on the way to a win by three tenths in 2:18.49.

Matt Vagedes turned in the other first-place finish for the Tribe, winning the pole vault at 10 feet.

Faller said the success at home should do nothing but build confidence for another big meet at Fort Recovery later this year.

“Any time we can have a competitive meet at home it’s going to help us for (the Midwest Athletic Conference),” she said of the meet the Tribe will host during the second week of May. “I was real pleased with all of them. The kids did well.”[[In-content Ad]]