July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Kenney leads sports stories
Kenney leads sports stories
It has been a tradition and the end of each year for The Commercial Review to recap the top 10 local news stories from the previous 365 days.
Occasionally a sports story or two has made the list, most notably in 2006 when the Jay County High School boys basketball team's run to the state finals was the top story of the year.
For 2009, we've decided to take a look back not only at the year's top news stories, but the top 10 local sports stories/accomplishments. Even though not much time has passed, its easy for some accomplishments to get lost in the shuffle, and the end of the year provides us an opportunity to look back and remember the successes of our local athletes.
After all, 2009 alone included two state medalists, an undefeated season and a state scoring champion and a tournament buzzer-beater.
Here is the full list of The CR's top 10 sports stories of 2009:
1 - Casey Kenney finishes fourth in state in 125-pound class in wrestling
2 - Nadlie Runyon places sixth in state on balance beam
3 - Brad Horn leads state in scoring in boys soccer
4 - Alyssa Johnson finishes fifth in NAIA National Championships in 1,500-meter run
5 - Jay County girls basketball team puts together undefeated regular season
6 - Greg Kahlig becomes first junior in Fort Recovery history to break the 1,000-point mark
7 - JCHS girls cross country team wins back-to-back regional titles
8 - Brandon Reynard leads Jay County boys track to sectional championship
9 - Toby Metzger hits last-second shot to give Fort Recovery boys basketball sectional title
10 - South Adams' Jim West earns all-state honors in football
Another medal
Coming off of a state runner-up finish at 103 pounds in 2008, Casey Kenney breezed through the first three rounds of the 119-pound tournament during his senior season. He won sectional, regional and semi-state titles to make it to the state finals in the most loaded of the 14 weight classes.
The 119-pound bracket included all of the top-10 ranked wrestlers in the state, including three former start champions and a total of eight former state medalists. He opened with wins of 9-2 over Hanover Central's John Petrov and 12-9 over Justin Kieffer of Ronacalli.
In the semifinal round, Kenney lost to Camden Eppert of Olympic Athletic Conference rival Anderson Highland 8-4. It was his third loss of the season to Eppert. He went on to suffer a 7-5 loss to Alex Johns of Evansville Reitz in the third-place match.
Home on the beam
Nadlie Runyon took her sophomore year off from gymnastics and won a sectional title in diving. But she returned to her No. 1 sport as a junior, and by the time the tournament rolled around she was in top form.
The junior turned in the best effort in school history on the balance beam at the regional meet at Huntington North, scoring a second-place 9.6 and surpassing two-time state medalist Hannah Williams' JCHS record of 9.55 set just four years earlier.
A week later Runyon gave the Patriots another state medal on the beam as she finished sixth with a 9.25.
She summed up her feelings about the event perfectly.
"I'm at home on the beam," Runyon said. "I feel more natural on the beam than I do walking."
Horn tears up net
No one in Indiana blistered the nets like JCHS forward Brad Horn, who rewrote the Patriot boys soccer record book while racking up a state-best 44 goals in 19 games.
Horn's best outing came in the regular-season finale with a five-goal effort against Lakeview Christian. It was one of five times during the year that he scored at least four goals in a game.
The senior, who was selected to play in the Indiana Youth Soccer Junior/Senior College Showcase, destroyed his own single-season school record for goals (27) and points (58) with 44 and 97 respectively. He also set JCHS career marks of 80 goals and 179 points, breaking the records of 36 and 82 held by Scott Bruggeman.
National spotlight
Alyssa Johnson, a 2006 Jay County graduate, earned perhaps the biggest honor of her running career in May when she competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Illinois.
The Taylor University junior was 10th in the preliminary round to earn a spot in the 1,500-meter finals, and then got even better as she posted a time of 4 minutes, 35.29 seconds to take fifth place.
Her time was good enough to break her own school record and make her the first Trojan to earn All-American honors in the event.
Now a senior, Johnson finished 61st in the NAIA women's cross country national championships this fall.
Patriots are perfect
It was a season to remember for the Jay County High School girls basketball team, which ran the regular-season table for an 18-0 record.
Their closest call of the regular season was a 56-53 win Jan. 17 at home over Connersville.
The Patriots won 14 games by double digits and had an average margin of victory of 22 points. They closed their perfect run with a 55-30 win over Delta in front of a record home crowd.
See Sports page 9
Continued from page 10
Unfortunately for JCHS, the undefeated run came to an abrupt end when Ashley Stalling of Fort Wayne South Side put back her own miss as time expired in the semifinal round of the sectional tournament to give her Archers a 51-49 victory. The Patriots, who were ranked sixth in Class 4A, had defeated South Side by 19 points in the first game of the season.
Kahlig keeps scoring
Needing just seven points to reach 1,000 for his career, Greg Kahlig kept the fans at Fort Recovery Fieldhouse buzzing as he scored six in the first half. He became the first Indian to reach the milestone as a junior on a three-point play in the third quarter in the Feb. 13 game and went on to score 21 points in leading FRHS to a 53-46 win over Marion Local.
Kahlig, who has signed to play collegiate basketball at Division II Findlay, is the No. 3 scorer in school history. If he continues his scoring pace he will break the record of 1,418 points set by Ken Heiby in 1969.
He finished his junior season averaging 23.9 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. He and Joanna Snyder, who is now playing at Ohio Northern, became the first Indians to win the boys and girls basketball Midwest Athletic Conference Player of the Year Award in the same season.
Another regional run
The Jay County girls cross country team continued one of the best runs of success in school history in any sport.
The Patriots won their second straight regional title fighting off host Delta by 13 points at The Water Bowl in Muncie. Wrestling and baseball are the only other sports in which JCHS has ever won consecutive regional titles.
Led by sophomore Katie Simmons and junior Leah Wellman, the Patriots also won their sixth straight Olympic Athletic Conference title and fourth straight sectional championship season. The team, with senior Kari Hemmelgarn and juniors Logan Laux and Megan Taylor rounding out the top five, also made their fourth consecutive trip to the semi-state meet.
Spectacular sectional
Perhaps no single-day individual performance was more impressive than Brandon Reynard's effort in leading the Jay County boys track team to its first sectional championship in 25 seasons.
Reynard put the team on his shoulders, competing in four individual events and running seven total races - three preliminaries and four finals. He won three of those finals, taking championships at the Muncie Central meet in the 110-meter hurdles, 300 hurdles and 200 dash and finished as the runner-up by just four hundredths of a second in the 100 dash.
The senior scored 38 points by himself and JCHS also got wins from Dexter Shreve in the 400 dash and a pair of relays to score 124.5 points and take the sectional crown by 16.5 points over Delta.
Reynard, who finished fifth in the state in the 300 hurdles as a junior, had his chance at a state title in the event cut short on a controversial disqualification call at the regional meet. (He won the race.) He is now running track at Indiana Tech.
'Bremen' beater
Fort Recovery High School's boys basketball team led for most of its sectional championship game, but fell behind by four in the final four minutes and faced a 44-43 deficit thanks to a hoop by New Bremen's Justin Ellerman with just 11 seconds left. After a timeout with four seconds left, Toby Metzger took the inbound pass well beyond the 3-point line and buried a 30-foot bomb at the buzzer to beat the Cardinals.
Upon hitting the shot, Metzger, typical of his personality, turned around toward the New Bremen fans and raised his ring finger to signify the sectional championship he had just stolen away. It was the second straight sectional title for FRHS, which lost by two to New Bremen in the regular-season finale.
Greg Kahlig had a game-high 18 points in the victory. Metzger, who now coaches the Fort Recovery seventh grade boys team, finished with five points and 10 rebounds.
Best in state
The Association Press honored Jim West, a South Adams High School senior, as one of the best defensive linemen in Class A football in Indiana.
The senior was one of three defensive linemen to earn first-team all-state honors after finishing the 2009 campaign with 51 tackles, including nine for a loss. He had two sacks, one block and one forced fumble.
West and Starfires finished just 4-6 on the year, but four of those losses came against Class 3A competition. Their only losses against Class A competition came in back-to-back weeks to eighth-ranked Southern Wells, which made it all the way to the semi-state before losing to Lafayette Central Catholic.[[In-content Ad]]
Occasionally a sports story or two has made the list, most notably in 2006 when the Jay County High School boys basketball team's run to the state finals was the top story of the year.
For 2009, we've decided to take a look back not only at the year's top news stories, but the top 10 local sports stories/accomplishments. Even though not much time has passed, its easy for some accomplishments to get lost in the shuffle, and the end of the year provides us an opportunity to look back and remember the successes of our local athletes.
After all, 2009 alone included two state medalists, an undefeated season and a state scoring champion and a tournament buzzer-beater.
Here is the full list of The CR's top 10 sports stories of 2009:
1 - Casey Kenney finishes fourth in state in 125-pound class in wrestling
2 - Nadlie Runyon places sixth in state on balance beam
3 - Brad Horn leads state in scoring in boys soccer
4 - Alyssa Johnson finishes fifth in NAIA National Championships in 1,500-meter run
5 - Jay County girls basketball team puts together undefeated regular season
6 - Greg Kahlig becomes first junior in Fort Recovery history to break the 1,000-point mark
7 - JCHS girls cross country team wins back-to-back regional titles
8 - Brandon Reynard leads Jay County boys track to sectional championship
9 - Toby Metzger hits last-second shot to give Fort Recovery boys basketball sectional title
10 - South Adams' Jim West earns all-state honors in football
Another medal
Coming off of a state runner-up finish at 103 pounds in 2008, Casey Kenney breezed through the first three rounds of the 119-pound tournament during his senior season. He won sectional, regional and semi-state titles to make it to the state finals in the most loaded of the 14 weight classes.
The 119-pound bracket included all of the top-10 ranked wrestlers in the state, including three former start champions and a total of eight former state medalists. He opened with wins of 9-2 over Hanover Central's John Petrov and 12-9 over Justin Kieffer of Ronacalli.
In the semifinal round, Kenney lost to Camden Eppert of Olympic Athletic Conference rival Anderson Highland 8-4. It was his third loss of the season to Eppert. He went on to suffer a 7-5 loss to Alex Johns of Evansville Reitz in the third-place match.
Home on the beam
Nadlie Runyon took her sophomore year off from gymnastics and won a sectional title in diving. But she returned to her No. 1 sport as a junior, and by the time the tournament rolled around she was in top form.
The junior turned in the best effort in school history on the balance beam at the regional meet at Huntington North, scoring a second-place 9.6 and surpassing two-time state medalist Hannah Williams' JCHS record of 9.55 set just four years earlier.
A week later Runyon gave the Patriots another state medal on the beam as she finished sixth with a 9.25.
She summed up her feelings about the event perfectly.
"I'm at home on the beam," Runyon said. "I feel more natural on the beam than I do walking."
Horn tears up net
No one in Indiana blistered the nets like JCHS forward Brad Horn, who rewrote the Patriot boys soccer record book while racking up a state-best 44 goals in 19 games.
Horn's best outing came in the regular-season finale with a five-goal effort against Lakeview Christian. It was one of five times during the year that he scored at least four goals in a game.
The senior, who was selected to play in the Indiana Youth Soccer Junior/Senior College Showcase, destroyed his own single-season school record for goals (27) and points (58) with 44 and 97 respectively. He also set JCHS career marks of 80 goals and 179 points, breaking the records of 36 and 82 held by Scott Bruggeman.
National spotlight
Alyssa Johnson, a 2006 Jay County graduate, earned perhaps the biggest honor of her running career in May when she competed in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Illinois.
The Taylor University junior was 10th in the preliminary round to earn a spot in the 1,500-meter finals, and then got even better as she posted a time of 4 minutes, 35.29 seconds to take fifth place.
Her time was good enough to break her own school record and make her the first Trojan to earn All-American honors in the event.
Now a senior, Johnson finished 61st in the NAIA women's cross country national championships this fall.
Patriots are perfect
It was a season to remember for the Jay County High School girls basketball team, which ran the regular-season table for an 18-0 record.
Their closest call of the regular season was a 56-53 win Jan. 17 at home over Connersville.
The Patriots won 14 games by double digits and had an average margin of victory of 22 points. They closed their perfect run with a 55-30 win over Delta in front of a record home crowd.
See Sports page 9
Continued from page 10
Unfortunately for JCHS, the undefeated run came to an abrupt end when Ashley Stalling of Fort Wayne South Side put back her own miss as time expired in the semifinal round of the sectional tournament to give her Archers a 51-49 victory. The Patriots, who were ranked sixth in Class 4A, had defeated South Side by 19 points in the first game of the season.
Kahlig keeps scoring
Needing just seven points to reach 1,000 for his career, Greg Kahlig kept the fans at Fort Recovery Fieldhouse buzzing as he scored six in the first half. He became the first Indian to reach the milestone as a junior on a three-point play in the third quarter in the Feb. 13 game and went on to score 21 points in leading FRHS to a 53-46 win over Marion Local.
Kahlig, who has signed to play collegiate basketball at Division II Findlay, is the No. 3 scorer in school history. If he continues his scoring pace he will break the record of 1,418 points set by Ken Heiby in 1969.
He finished his junior season averaging 23.9 points and 8.5 rebounds per game. He and Joanna Snyder, who is now playing at Ohio Northern, became the first Indians to win the boys and girls basketball Midwest Athletic Conference Player of the Year Award in the same season.
Another regional run
The Jay County girls cross country team continued one of the best runs of success in school history in any sport.
The Patriots won their second straight regional title fighting off host Delta by 13 points at The Water Bowl in Muncie. Wrestling and baseball are the only other sports in which JCHS has ever won consecutive regional titles.
Led by sophomore Katie Simmons and junior Leah Wellman, the Patriots also won their sixth straight Olympic Athletic Conference title and fourth straight sectional championship season. The team, with senior Kari Hemmelgarn and juniors Logan Laux and Megan Taylor rounding out the top five, also made their fourth consecutive trip to the semi-state meet.
Spectacular sectional
Perhaps no single-day individual performance was more impressive than Brandon Reynard's effort in leading the Jay County boys track team to its first sectional championship in 25 seasons.
Reynard put the team on his shoulders, competing in four individual events and running seven total races - three preliminaries and four finals. He won three of those finals, taking championships at the Muncie Central meet in the 110-meter hurdles, 300 hurdles and 200 dash and finished as the runner-up by just four hundredths of a second in the 100 dash.
The senior scored 38 points by himself and JCHS also got wins from Dexter Shreve in the 400 dash and a pair of relays to score 124.5 points and take the sectional crown by 16.5 points over Delta.
Reynard, who finished fifth in the state in the 300 hurdles as a junior, had his chance at a state title in the event cut short on a controversial disqualification call at the regional meet. (He won the race.) He is now running track at Indiana Tech.
'Bremen' beater
Fort Recovery High School's boys basketball team led for most of its sectional championship game, but fell behind by four in the final four minutes and faced a 44-43 deficit thanks to a hoop by New Bremen's Justin Ellerman with just 11 seconds left. After a timeout with four seconds left, Toby Metzger took the inbound pass well beyond the 3-point line and buried a 30-foot bomb at the buzzer to beat the Cardinals.
Upon hitting the shot, Metzger, typical of his personality, turned around toward the New Bremen fans and raised his ring finger to signify the sectional championship he had just stolen away. It was the second straight sectional title for FRHS, which lost by two to New Bremen in the regular-season finale.
Greg Kahlig had a game-high 18 points in the victory. Metzger, who now coaches the Fort Recovery seventh grade boys team, finished with five points and 10 rebounds.
Best in state
The Association Press honored Jim West, a South Adams High School senior, as one of the best defensive linemen in Class A football in Indiana.
The senior was one of three defensive linemen to earn first-team all-state honors after finishing the 2009 campaign with 51 tackles, including nine for a loss. He had two sacks, one block and one forced fumble.
West and Starfires finished just 4-6 on the year, but four of those losses came against Class 3A competition. Their only losses against Class A competition came in back-to-back weeks to eighth-ranked Southern Wells, which made it all the way to the semi-state before losing to Lafayette Central Catholic.[[In-content Ad]]
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