Jay Co. places 2nd

Saturday was a fast day for the Patriots and Indians.
Megan Wellman broke the Jay County High School girls cross country team’s freshman record. Elle Sutter, a 2010 state qualifier, set a career-best time for the Fort Recovery girls.
And Dylan Cope and Derek Sutter also ran career-best times for the Jay County and Fort Recovery boys respectively.
Wellman’s effort led the Patriot girls to a runner-up finish in the overall competition with 80 points. Eastbrook won with 71, and Fort Recovery was sixth with 181.
“I thought as a whole we did a really good job,” said JCHS coach Brian McEvoy. “We knew with the Leo girls and the Hagerstown girl and the Eastbrook girl we had four or five girls here who have a chance to go to the state meet. So we knew the pace here was going to be pretty quick …
“We had to run really, really well to even be competitive here, and we did that.”
In the boys competition, Fort Recovery scored 218 points to finish eighth out of 17 teams. Jay County was 11th with 283, and finished third out of five teams in the large-school division. St. Henry won with 39.
Cope turned in the best individual finish out of all of the local runners. He was among the top competitors throughout the race, running in fourth place most of the way.
The senior dropped back to fifth place with less than a mile to go, but fought back to finish three seconds ahead of St. Henry’s Clayton Bruggeman for fourth place in 16 minutes, 31 seconds.
Eastbrook’s Josh Neideck won in 15:51.
“Dylan is just getting better and better,” said McEvoy of Cope, who ran more than a minute faster than he did at last season’s sectional meet. “Last week what we tried to do is really speed up his first mile and just get in front and get established. He had a nice time last week on the sectional course, and today he ran even faster …”
Elle Sutter had the top time in the girls race as she trailed the top runners from Eastbrook, Hagerstown and Leo. She crossed the finish line in sixth place overall in 19:34, surpassing her previous career best by 12 seconds.
“She ran amazing,” said FRHS coach Michelle Stammen. “I am thrilled with her performance.
“She wants to make it to state again. She just missed repeating and going to state as a sophomore by two places, so she is determined and focused to not allow that to happen again this year.”
Wellman was just two places behind Sutter as she posted a time of 19:40. She broke the JCHS freshman record of 19:44.4 set by Aly Miller at the 2007 regional meet.
Abigail Johnson was ninth for Jay County in 20:04, and Emi Minnich (JCHS) and Caitlyn Huelskamp (FRHS) tied for 12th at 20:10.
“Megan Wellman today had a really, really good meet,” said McEvoy. “She’s come on really strong for us. And she and Emi and Abigail have done a really good job working against each other and working together. I don’t know that we’ve had a repeat No. 1 two weeks in a row the entire season … It’s just making us better and better and better and it really helps our team out.”
Derek Sutter ran his typically smart race for the Indian boys. He was running in the mid-20s early on and gradually moved up for a 15th-place finish in 17:03.
“He does run a very smart race,” said Stammen of the senior, who surpassed the career-best time of 17:36 he set Sept. 15 at the Eaton Invitational. “And he has been putting in so much effort to improve his times. ... He is running really, really well.”
Kellie Fortkamp was 16th for the Jay County girls in 20:29, and Kaitlin Hemmelgarn finished 36th in 21:23.
Trailing Sutter and Huelskamp for the Indians, who were without No. 2 runner Abby May, were Sam Tobe (21:26) and Jessica Vogel (38th - 21:29) and Katie Braun (61st - 23:03).
Joey Gonzalez finished 38th for the Fort Recovery boys in 18:13 followed by Nathan Fullenkamp (42nd - 18:26), Isaac Siegrist (64th - 19:14) and Mitchell Homan (67th - 19:23).
Michael Denney followed Cope in 65th place for the JCHS boys in 19:16. Jacob Nichols was 69th in 19:28 ahead of Chaz Carroll (77th - 19:43) and Mathew Cox (79th - 19:51).

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