July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
FR state finals run leads list
FR state finals run leads list
For the second straight year, a Tribe tournament run topped local sports news.
A year after the Fort Recovery High School boys basketball team’s trip to the regional final topped the list of top 10 area sports stories, the girls team went a step further.
The Indian girls basketball team leads a group of stories this year that included sectional, regional and semi-state champions, all-state athletes and career scoring leaders. It earned the top spot on the sports list, and also made the top 10 overall local stories of the year, after advancing to the state final four with its first regional title since winning back-to-back state championships in 1990 and ’91.
The rest of the top 10 stories are:
2 — Jay County boys basketball team wins first Class 4A sectional championship.
3 — Drake Meska earns semi-state wrestling title.
4 — Maria Murphy claims regional discus championship.
5 — Holly Brunswick places seventh in state high jump.
6 — Dustin Wanner voted to Class 1A all-state team.
7 — JCHS girls win sixth straight sectional cross country crown.
8 — Patriot girls track repeats as sectional champions.
9 — Tyler Rigby finishes as IU East’s all-time leading scorer.
10 — Jared Kahlig wins Midwest Athletic Conference boys golf title.
1. Fort final four
The best was yet to come for the Indians, even after an 18-2 regular season capped by an overtime win over St. John’s.
After rolling over MAC rival Parkway in its tournament opener, Fort Recovery knocked off four straight 20-win teams to advance to the state finals. The first three of those wins came with relative ease, as the Tribe topped Tinora and Evergreen by double digits in the district tournament and then beat No. 2 Lake 45-36 in the regional semifinal. The last was a much taller task, as the unranked Indians knocked off No. 6 Africentric Early College 56-50 for the regional title.
Foul trouble plagued FRHS in its state semifinal game as the team dropped out of the Division III tournament with a 57-40 loss to eventual state champion Anna. But the season will be remembered for its dramatic wins over Delphos schools Jefferson and St. John’s, 14 straight wins en route to the state final four and a 23-3 record for the third-best mark in school history.
2. 4A champions
In its first seven years competing in Class 4A, the Jay County boys basketball team had won just a single tourney game. They changed their fortunes in 2011, racking up three wins on the way to the sectional title.
The Patriots started their run in dramatic fashion, rallying from a 10-point, second-half deficit against host Huntington North. They tied the game on Brock McFarland’s lay-up with 1.2 seconds left and then controlled overtime for a 53-48 win.
JCHS eliminated sectional favorite Homestead 58-45 in the semifinal round, and then topped Fort Wayne South Side 67-59 for the sectional title.
3. Semi-state sweet
After winning a sectional title and finishing second in the regional, Meska had his sights set on a state berth.
He earned the trip to the state finals with a quarterfinal semi-state win over Woodlan’s Cody Zink when he came up with a reversal with just 11 seconds left for a 5-4 victory. And he went on to top Brooks Faurote of Bellmont 7-0 in the semifinal round.
That victory set up a rematch of the regional championship match. Meska avenged his loss from the previous week, taking down Yorktown’s Cole VanHorn in the first 12 seconds and staying in control for a 9-6 victory and the semi-state title.
4. Discus domination
Murphy took an undefeated discus record into the regional tournament and came away a champion.
The Jay County junior, who was the runner-up a year earlier and entered the meet seeded third, immediately set the mark to beat as she launched her first attempt at the Ben Davis meet 126 feet, 2 ½ inches. That number stood through the rest of the evening, as no other competitor cleared the 123-foot mark.
The regional championship for Murphy capped a season in which she went through the sectional unbeaten in both the discus and shot put. She went on to finish 15th at the state finals.
5. State medalist
The chance at a state medal came down to a single jump for Fort Recovery senior Holly Brunswick.
She missed on her first two attempts at 5 feet, 4 inches, and faced her final jump knowing that clearing the bar would guarantee her a state medal. Missing would leave her off the podium.
Brunswick rose to the occasion, making it over the bar on her final jump and going on to a seventh-place finish in Division III. It marked her second straight state medal after she finished tied for eighth in the high jump as a junior.
6. Elite in the state
The South Adams football team turned in an 8-1 regular season, was ranked fourth in Class 1A and advanced to the sectional championship before falling to Sheridan in overtime.
Wanner was rewarded for leading the Starfires’ success as The Associated Press voted him to the Class 1A All-State team at defensive back.
The senior, who also played quarterback, had 46 tackles and two interceptions to help lead a team that allowed just 16.1 points per game. On offense he ran for 1,244 yards and 19 touchdowns and passed for 799 yards and eight TDs.
7. Sectional six pack
No area squad has been more dominant in its sectional than the Jay County girls cross country team.
The Patriots rolled to their sixth straight sectional title this year, scoring 41 points to finish 19 better than host Delta.
Senior Katie Simmons powered JCHS to the championship with her second career runner-up finish. Eme Miller followed in sixth place, and Liz Lennartz (ninth), Abigail Johnson (11th) and Miranda Gerber (19th) rounded out the team’s top five.
The run of sectional titles ranks second in school history to the wrestling team, which won 11 in a row from 1978 though ’88.
8. Two in a row
For the second straight season, no team came close to the Patriots in the girls track sectional meet at Muncie Southside.
After winning the title by 50 points in 2010, Jay County posted the highest point total at the tournament in 12 years — 169 — to win easily over runner-up Muncie Central (103).
Juniors Katie Simmons and Murphy led the Patriots with two sectional titles apiece. Simmons posted career-best times in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs while Murphy took the shot put and discus.
JCHS had multiple athletes in the top eight in 11 of 12 individual events.
9. All-time leader
No player in the history of Indiana University East basketball has scored more points than Rigby.
The JCHS graduate, who led the Patriots to the Class 3A state championship game in 2006, scored 20 points in the final game of his career against Indiana Wesleyan to finish with 1,709. He is also the Red Wolves’ career leader in 3-pointers (219) and offensive rebounds (156) and the single-game record for free throws (14).
Rigby won the school’s NAIA Champions of Character Award for the second straight year and was named to the All-Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference team.
10. MAC champion
When tournament time arrived, Jared Kahlig was ready.
The Fort Recovery High School senior played his best golf in the postseason, posting a 75 at the MAC Tournament to win the title. He finished three strokes ahead of runner-up Darin Bergman of New Bremen.
Kahlig followed up his conference effort with a 76 at the sectional tournament, finishing as the runner-up one stroke behind Bergman. He fell four strokes short of a state berth, posting an 83 at the district tournament.[[In-content Ad]]
A year after the Fort Recovery High School boys basketball team’s trip to the regional final topped the list of top 10 area sports stories, the girls team went a step further.
The Indian girls basketball team leads a group of stories this year that included sectional, regional and semi-state champions, all-state athletes and career scoring leaders. It earned the top spot on the sports list, and also made the top 10 overall local stories of the year, after advancing to the state final four with its first regional title since winning back-to-back state championships in 1990 and ’91.
The rest of the top 10 stories are:
2 — Jay County boys basketball team wins first Class 4A sectional championship.
3 — Drake Meska earns semi-state wrestling title.
4 — Maria Murphy claims regional discus championship.
5 — Holly Brunswick places seventh in state high jump.
6 — Dustin Wanner voted to Class 1A all-state team.
7 — JCHS girls win sixth straight sectional cross country crown.
8 — Patriot girls track repeats as sectional champions.
9 — Tyler Rigby finishes as IU East’s all-time leading scorer.
10 — Jared Kahlig wins Midwest Athletic Conference boys golf title.
1. Fort final four
The best was yet to come for the Indians, even after an 18-2 regular season capped by an overtime win over St. John’s.
After rolling over MAC rival Parkway in its tournament opener, Fort Recovery knocked off four straight 20-win teams to advance to the state finals. The first three of those wins came with relative ease, as the Tribe topped Tinora and Evergreen by double digits in the district tournament and then beat No. 2 Lake 45-36 in the regional semifinal. The last was a much taller task, as the unranked Indians knocked off No. 6 Africentric Early College 56-50 for the regional title.
Foul trouble plagued FRHS in its state semifinal game as the team dropped out of the Division III tournament with a 57-40 loss to eventual state champion Anna. But the season will be remembered for its dramatic wins over Delphos schools Jefferson and St. John’s, 14 straight wins en route to the state final four and a 23-3 record for the third-best mark in school history.
2. 4A champions
In its first seven years competing in Class 4A, the Jay County boys basketball team had won just a single tourney game. They changed their fortunes in 2011, racking up three wins on the way to the sectional title.
The Patriots started their run in dramatic fashion, rallying from a 10-point, second-half deficit against host Huntington North. They tied the game on Brock McFarland’s lay-up with 1.2 seconds left and then controlled overtime for a 53-48 win.
JCHS eliminated sectional favorite Homestead 58-45 in the semifinal round, and then topped Fort Wayne South Side 67-59 for the sectional title.
3. Semi-state sweet
After winning a sectional title and finishing second in the regional, Meska had his sights set on a state berth.
He earned the trip to the state finals with a quarterfinal semi-state win over Woodlan’s Cody Zink when he came up with a reversal with just 11 seconds left for a 5-4 victory. And he went on to top Brooks Faurote of Bellmont 7-0 in the semifinal round.
That victory set up a rematch of the regional championship match. Meska avenged his loss from the previous week, taking down Yorktown’s Cole VanHorn in the first 12 seconds and staying in control for a 9-6 victory and the semi-state title.
4. Discus domination
Murphy took an undefeated discus record into the regional tournament and came away a champion.
The Jay County junior, who was the runner-up a year earlier and entered the meet seeded third, immediately set the mark to beat as she launched her first attempt at the Ben Davis meet 126 feet, 2 ½ inches. That number stood through the rest of the evening, as no other competitor cleared the 123-foot mark.
The regional championship for Murphy capped a season in which she went through the sectional unbeaten in both the discus and shot put. She went on to finish 15th at the state finals.
5. State medalist
The chance at a state medal came down to a single jump for Fort Recovery senior Holly Brunswick.
She missed on her first two attempts at 5 feet, 4 inches, and faced her final jump knowing that clearing the bar would guarantee her a state medal. Missing would leave her off the podium.
Brunswick rose to the occasion, making it over the bar on her final jump and going on to a seventh-place finish in Division III. It marked her second straight state medal after she finished tied for eighth in the high jump as a junior.
6. Elite in the state
The South Adams football team turned in an 8-1 regular season, was ranked fourth in Class 1A and advanced to the sectional championship before falling to Sheridan in overtime.
Wanner was rewarded for leading the Starfires’ success as The Associated Press voted him to the Class 1A All-State team at defensive back.
The senior, who also played quarterback, had 46 tackles and two interceptions to help lead a team that allowed just 16.1 points per game. On offense he ran for 1,244 yards and 19 touchdowns and passed for 799 yards and eight TDs.
7. Sectional six pack
No area squad has been more dominant in its sectional than the Jay County girls cross country team.
The Patriots rolled to their sixth straight sectional title this year, scoring 41 points to finish 19 better than host Delta.
Senior Katie Simmons powered JCHS to the championship with her second career runner-up finish. Eme Miller followed in sixth place, and Liz Lennartz (ninth), Abigail Johnson (11th) and Miranda Gerber (19th) rounded out the team’s top five.
The run of sectional titles ranks second in school history to the wrestling team, which won 11 in a row from 1978 though ’88.
8. Two in a row
For the second straight season, no team came close to the Patriots in the girls track sectional meet at Muncie Southside.
After winning the title by 50 points in 2010, Jay County posted the highest point total at the tournament in 12 years — 169 — to win easily over runner-up Muncie Central (103).
Juniors Katie Simmons and Murphy led the Patriots with two sectional titles apiece. Simmons posted career-best times in the 1,600- and 3,200-meter runs while Murphy took the shot put and discus.
JCHS had multiple athletes in the top eight in 11 of 12 individual events.
9. All-time leader
No player in the history of Indiana University East basketball has scored more points than Rigby.
The JCHS graduate, who led the Patriots to the Class 3A state championship game in 2006, scored 20 points in the final game of his career against Indiana Wesleyan to finish with 1,709. He is also the Red Wolves’ career leader in 3-pointers (219) and offensive rebounds (156) and the single-game record for free throws (14).
Rigby won the school’s NAIA Champions of Character Award for the second straight year and was named to the All-Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference team.
10. MAC champion
When tournament time arrived, Jared Kahlig was ready.
The Fort Recovery High School senior played his best golf in the postseason, posting a 75 at the MAC Tournament to win the title. He finished three strokes ahead of runner-up Darin Bergman of New Bremen.
Kahlig followed up his conference effort with a 76 at the sectional tournament, finishing as the runner-up one stroke behind Bergman. He fell four strokes short of a state berth, posting an 83 at the district tournament.[[In-content Ad]]
Top Stories
9/11 NEVER FORGET Mobile Exhibit
Chartwells marketing
September 17, 2024 7:36 a.m.
Events
250 X 250 AD