Indians' run ranks No. 1

It was another year of accomplishment for local athletes.
There were sectional, district and regional championships. And a host of athletes from Jay County, Fort Recovery and South Adams high schools competed in the state finals.
Ultimately, it was a team’s dramatic tournament run that left them just short of the state Final Four that led the list of top 10 local sports stories/accomplishments this year.
Here is our list:
1 – Fort Recovery boys basketball team reaches regional final
2 – Greg Kahlig voted Division IV Player of the Year
3 – Jay County girls cross country wins third straight regional championship
4 – Tyler Rigby becomes Indiana University – East’s all-time leading scorer
5 – Nadlie Runyon wins regional balance beam championship
6 – Holly Brunswick earns state medal in high jump
7 – Jordan McMillan leads Jay County to girls track sectional title
8 – Freshmen Katie Snyder (Jay County gymnastics) and Elle Sutter (Fort Recovery cross country) reach state finals
9 – Jay County boys soccer wins third straight sectional title
10 – South Adams football runs to sectional finale

Securing their place
The seniors on the FRHS boys basketball team wanted to make sure they would be remembered. And they accomplished that goal with a dramatic tournament run.
Although the Indians’ fell one game short of a state Final Four berth, they did so in a classic game in which senior Greg Kahlig rallied the squad from a 16-point, second-half deficit. Even after Kahlig fouled out with 2:05 left, the Tribe still went toe-to-toe with eventual state champion Jefferson Township before falling by four in overtime.
The tournament run almost never was, as Fort Recovery (21-4) needed to rally from 14 points down with less than six minutes to play to defeated New Knoxville in the sectional title game. The Indians, who earned just their third Midwest Athletic Conference title in school history, went on to avenge a regular-season loss against co-champion New Bremen in the district finale, and then knocked off Lockland in overtime in the regional semifinal.

Kahlig is best in Ohio
Greg Kahlig was the driving force to Fort Recovery reaching the regional title game, but his individual accomplishments deserve to stand on their own.
Following the Tribe senior’s stellar season, the Ohio High School Basketball Coaches Association voted him Division IV Player of the Year. He also won his second Midwest Athletic Conference Player of the Year Award, adding it to a litany of other honors.
Kahlig, who now plays at NCAA Division II No. 2 Findlay, broke the FRHS scoring record of 1,418 points set by Ken Heiby in 1969 midway through the season and finished with 1,727. He is second in MAC history, just 17 points behind 2004 Versailles graduate Kyle Gehle.
He was among the state leaders in points (25.2) and rebounds (11) per game.

JC runners three-peat
Jay County’s girls cross country team knew going into the season that a three-peat would be difficult to attain, and even entered the meet as the No. 4 seed. But the Patriots bucked the odds to fight off Mount Vernon by six points to earn their third straight regional championship.
The victory is even more impressive given that the team lost senior Megan Taylor to injury and had three first-year runners in their top five at the regional meet.
Junior Katie Simmons led the team with a fourth-place finish in 20 minutes, 29 seconds, and senior Leah Wellman was 10th in 20:57. Following them were first-year runners Eme Miller, a junior, in 14th, and freshmen Abigail Johnson (18th) and Miranda Gerber (21st).

Rigby leads IU-East
Tyler Rigby cemented his place in Indiana University – East history in January when he broke the school’s career scoring record.
Rigby claimed the mark when he scored 21 points in a Red Wolves’ victory over Alice Lloyd, surpassing the previous record of 810 points held by Joe Ramey. He later became the first player in IU-East history to break the 1,000-point barrier, and has scored 303 points so far this season to give him 1,382 for his career.
He was on the NAIA Division III All-America honorable mention list, and was named to the All-Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference team for the second straight year. He was among the national leaders in scoring and 3-point shooting last season, and ranks 21st in scoring this year.

Runyon rules regional
When the stakes were at their highest, Nadlie Runyon was at her best.
After setting the school record and winning a state medal on the balance beam as a junior, Runyon highlighted her senior season with a regional championship on the event. Her 9.2 at the Huntington North tournament gave her the title by one tenth of a point over Mary Reed of Carroll.
She followed up the beam victory with 9.35 on the floor exercise to finish as the runner-up. Her all-around total of 35.45 — she had an 8.3 on the uneven bars and an 8.6 on the vault — was good for sixth place, which earned her a trip to the state finals in all four events.

Brunswick makes leap
After narrowly missing out on state berths in each of her first two seasons, Fort Recovery junior Holly Brunswick made the most of her June trip to Columbus.
Brunswick cleared the high-jump bar on her first attempt at 5 feet, 2 inches and was one of four athletes to finish at that height. Her clean jumps gave her the edge in the tiebreaker as she finished in an eighth-place tie with Russia’s Bethany York to earn a state medal.
She also cleared the bar at 5 feet, 2 inches to earn her state berth with a fourth-place finish at the Troy regional meet. She was third in the Minster district in both the high jump and long jump, and fourth in the 100-meter hurdles.

McMillan powers track
A year after Brandon Reynard dominated the boys track sectional to lead Jay County to its first sectional title in 25 years, Jordan McMillan did the same in the girls meet as the Patriots won their first  sectional championship since 1992.
McMillan reprised Reynard’s effort by winning three events and finishing second in another to single-handedly score 38 points. She was first by more than a second in the 200-meter dash in 26.99 seconds, and also won the 100 dash in 12.89 and the long jump at 15 feet, 7 inches. Her runner-up effort came with a leap of five feet even in the high jump.
Katie Simmons added a victory in the 1,600 run for Jay County, which finished 50 points ahead of runner-up Delta.

Freshmen make state
Going to the state finals is always special. Doing it as a freshman is even more impressive.
Katie Snyder and Elle Sutter both accomplished the feat during 2010.
Snyder earned a spot in the IHSAA Gymnastics State Finals in March with a sixth-place effort on the vault at the Huntington North regional. She put up a score of 9.35 a week after finishing as the sectional runner-up on the event.
Sutter accomplished the feat seven months later at as she placed 10th in the Division III girls cross country regional meet at Troy to earn a trip to Columbus. Her time of 19 minutes, 47.5 seconds represented an improvement of more that three minutes from the start of the season.

Jay boys win 3rd straight
The Jay County boys soccer team got off to a rough start with six straight losses and were shutout six times during a 4-11 regular season. But when the tournament rolled around, the Patriots were ready.
They avenged a regular-season loss with a 5-0 drubbing of Delta in the sectional semifinal round. And in the championship they overcame a one-goal deficit to defeat Wapahani 3-2.
Jay County trailed in the game for just two minutes before pulling even, and Dylan Swingley gave his team the lead for good with about 14 minutes to go in the first half. Alex Dunn added a third score in the opening half, and after Wapahani pulled within a goal Dillon Ainsworth held the Raiders scoreless for the final 38 minutes.

Starfires make run
South Adams’ football season got off to a similarly difficult start as the Starfires dropped their first five games. The stretch including giving up a 14-point, second-half lead against Bellmont, falling by one to Bluffton on the final play of the game and losing 6-2 to Heritage.
However, in a game played at Ball State University, SAHS broke through with a 46-21 thumping of rival Adams Central. It went on to win six games in a row, closing the regular-season with a 69-14 destruction of state-ranked Southern Wells and then topping North Miami and Northfield in the sectional tournament.
The Starfires had a 14-0 lead in the sectional title game before giving up 35 unanswered points in a 43-21 loss to No. 5 Churubusco.[[In-content Ad]]