JCHS 1st at Celina

CELINA, Ohio — The Patriots took the final step up the ladder Saturday.
Jay County High School’s girls cross country team, which finished third two seasons ago and second last year at the Celina Rotary Invitational, climbed to the top rung Saturday. The team scored 54 points at the nine-team meet on the Wright State University Lake Campus to fight off the host Bulldogs (58) and Findlay (60) for the top spot in the girls Green Division race.
Fort Recovery’s girls team matched its third-place finish from last year with 83 points in the White Division. Coldwater easily won with 18 points, and Fort Loramie was second in the six-team group at 83.
The Tribe boys were fourth out of seven with 117 points behind St. Henry (30), Coldwater (40) and New Bremen (71).
While Celina looked strong early with two runners in the top three, Jay County put each of its five scoring runners in the top 17 to earn the win. Leah Wellman and Eme Miller led the group, finishing back-to-back in sixth and seventh with times of 21 minutes, 44 seconds and 21:49 respectively.
Abigail Johnson and Katie Simmons also finished consecutively in 13th and 14th at 22:21 and 22:33. Logan Laux finished off the victory with a time of 22:54 for 17th place in the field of 11 runners.
Freshman Jessica Vogel set the pace for the Fort Recovery girls, whose top five runners all finished between 14th and 26. She was the lead runner, fighting off Blackhawk Christian’s Brittany Fielder for 14th place in 22:18.
Sophomore Abby May placed 17th in 22:28, and Samantha Thobe and Elle Sutter took 19th and 20th in 22:42 and 22:52 respectively. Nicole Heitkamp crossed the finish line in 23:26 for 26th place.
Ryan Heitkamp was the only runner to finish in the top 25 for the Indian boys as his time of 18:44 put him in 15th place. Caleb Heikamp was 26th in 19:29, and Derek Sutter and Nathan Fullenkamp placed 31st and 32nd in 19:56 and 20:03.
Calvin Kaiser rounded out the team score with his 36th place finish in 20:19.
The JCHS boys, who do not have enough runners for a team score, got an 84th place finish from freshman Chaz Carroll in 23:08. Tyler Osborne was 89th in 24:01, and Zach Johnson finished 113th in 28:14.
Also running for local teams were Miranda Gerber (25th - 23:23) and Liz Lennartz (32nd - 23:48) for Jay County, Abby Huelskamp (39th - 24:30) and Alexis Sutter (41st - 24:39) for the FRHS girls and Marshall Hull (46th - 20:55) and Joey Gonzalez (48th - 21:11) for the Tribe boys.

Middle school
Fort Recovery had one runner place in the top 20 as the girls team finished seventh with 141 points. The boys do not have enough runners for a team score.
Caitlyn Huelskamp led the Indian girls with a time of 14:57 for 19th place. Monica Fullenkamp was 29th in 15:17, and Paige McCain was 31st in 15:25.
Janel Heitkamp crossed the finish line in 15:38 for 37th place, and Samantha Kaiser was 39th in 15:44.
In the boys race Anthony Jutte led Fort Recovery in 13:42 for 23rd place, and Gabe Muhlenkamp was 35th in 14:26. Isaac Siegrist was 48th in 15:05, and Eli Koester was 53rd in 15:22.[[In-content Ad]]