FR girls reach regional

SPENCERVILLE, Ohio — The Indians can now be considered a regional regular.
With its third-place finish at the Division III district meet hosted by Spencerville Saturday, the Fort Recovery High School girls cross country team earned its fifth regional berth in the last six seasons.
The Tribe scored 86 points to finish behind only No. 1-ranked Minster (26) and the host Bearcats (60). Marion Local (132) was a distant fourth in the meet, from which the top four teams and top 16 individuals advanced to the regional level of the tournament.
The season came to a close Saturday for the Fort Recovery boys, who finished sixth out of 10 teams with 160 points. They were one ahead of seventh-place Parkway and 35 behind fifth-place New Bremen.
No. 8 Minster won the boys competition with 38 points, followed by seventh-ranked St. Henry (58), Crestview (75) and Spencerville (123).
Elle Sutter led the Tribe girls to their third consecutive regional berth as she was in contention for the individual district title. The freshman, who had never broken the 21-minute mark before the Jay County Invitational just three weeks ago, made a run at the 19s in her first tournament race. She crossed the finish line in 20 minutes, 6 seconds for fourth place.
Kelli Ley of Spencerville was the district champion at 19:53 ahead of Maria Dahlinghaus (19:56) and Olivia Enneking (19:59), both of Minster.
Sophomore Abby May narrowly missed a top-10 finish as she turned in a time of 20:42. She was 11th, just one second behind Spencerville’s Claire McConnell.
Nicole Heitkamp was 23rd in 21:49 for the Tribe, Jessica Vogel was 12 seconds behind her in 24th and senior Alexis Sutter capped the team score with a 28th-place finish in 22:18.
The girls will run in the regional meet at Troy Saturday at 1:20 p.m.
See Regional page 9
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Senior Ryan Heitkamp came up just short in his final attempt for a regional berth in the boys race, in which the Indians improved from their eighth-place effort last season. He was 18th with a time of 17:47, finishing seven seconds behind 16th-place Kevin Knapke of St. Henry.
Derek Sutter was the No. 2 runner for the Indians in 28th at 18:19. Nathan Fullenkamp was 38th in 18:55, Calvin Kaiser was one spot behind in 18:56, and Joey Gonzalez finished in 42nd at 19:09.
Also running for the Indians were Samantha Tobe (38th – 22:50) and Abby Huelskamp (45th – 23:11) in the girls race, and Caleb Heitkamp (54th – 20:18) and Marshall Hull (55th – 20:19).[[In-content Ad]]