Second at Celina

CELINA, Ohio - Both local teams took a step forward.

Following a third-place finish last season, the Jay County High School girls cross country team took second place Saturday in the Division I race at the Celina Rotary Invitational. Fort Recovery's girls also moved up one spot, from fourth to third, in the Division II/III competition.

The Patriots scored 46 points, finishing 10 behind champion Findlay and 12 ahead of third-place Celina in the five-team field. The Indians were third out of eight teams.

The FRHS boys team finished 11th out of 12 teams in Division II/III.

Leah Wellman of Jay County posted the best time of the day for either girls squad. She finished third in 21 minutes, 34 seconds while Findlay's Erin Gwinn won in 21:24.

Marissa Brunswick placed ninth for Fort Recovery in 21:38 at the course at Wright State University's Lake Campus.

Trailing Wellman for the Patriots was Katie Simmons in fifth place in 22:06. Aly Miller gave the team a third runner in the top 10 as she took seventh in 22:35.

Senior Kari Hemmelgarn crossed the finish line in 23:25 for 17th place, and Logan Laux completed the JCHS team score in 19th in 23:34.

Abby May was the No. 2 runner for the Indian girls in 13th place with a time of 22:14. Nicole Heitkamp finished 21st in 23:01, Alexis Sutter was 22nd in 23:12 and Casey Backs took 24th at 23:17.

Fort Recovery's Ryan Heitkamp was the top area boys runner, finishing in 18:56 for 28th place. Nathan Fullenkamp was 58 seconds behind him for 46th.

Joining them were Adam Pohl (78th - 21:48), Marshal Hull (81st - 22:04) and Zach Guggenbiller (91st - 22:58).

Dylan Cope was 20th for Jay County's boys as he finished in 19:49. Kyle Scott followed in 59th with a time of 22 minutes flat, and Zach Johnson was 70th in 23:54.

Also running for the Patriot girls were Megan Taylor (23rd - 23:52) and Liz Lennartz (29th - 24:12). Other competitors for Fort Recovery were Samantha Tobe (34th - 24:17) and Abby Huelskamp (39th - 24:46) in the girls race, and Andy Gray (96th - 23:29) and Aaron Will (105th - 24:55) for the boys.

Middle school

Josh Pohl took first place as the Fort Recovery boys finished second out of 11 teams. The Tribe girls were fourth.

Pohl earned the victory to lead the Indians with a time of 11:40. He was the runner-up at the event last season.

Derek Sutter followed in seventh place at 12:46. Joe Gonzalez was 16th in 13:46 followed by Grant Hull (20th - 13:55) and Sam Huelskamp (57th - 15:20).

Jessica Vogel and Elle Sutter went back-to-back for the FRMS girls in 11th and 12th places with times of 14:30 and 14:09 respectively. Samantha Kaiser was 35th in 15:29 ahead of Kinsey McEldowney (37th - 15:32) and Cassie Gray (41st - 15:39).[[In-content Ad]]