Suddenly Indians have chance at state meet (10/28/05)

“What was the color of their jerseys?”

That is all the Indians wanted to know. Now they do, and they’ll be hunting down the red and black Saturday.

Division III No. 1 Minster, No. 5 Versailles and No. 7 Van Wert Lincolnview will take the top three spots at Saturday’s Troy cross country regional. That much is almost certain.

But it leaves one state-qualifying position left, and Fort Recovery’s girls cross country team plans on trying to get it.

Based on regional times they sit as the fifth-seeded team and will need to beat out the Fort Loramie Redskins — wearing their red and black — to make it to the state stage.

“That’s the way they approached the whole season — look at that goal, look at that team and let’s go take them down,” said FRHS coach Jason Grieshop.

That the Indians are even in a position to have a chance to advance to the state meet is amazing.

Fort Recovery’s cross country teams have been in a slump for the last several seasons.

Two years ago the girls squad, in all its invitational meets, beat just one team.

Last season it had just three members, and again went without even an individual making it past the district round of the tournament.

More than half of this season’s seven-member team is made up of first-year runners. And yet now not only did the entire squad qualify for the regional meet with its third-place district finish, but it has a real chance of reaching Columbus.

“Everybody works so hard,” said freshman Tina Roessner, one of the team’s newcomers who has split the team’s top spot with fellow newcomer sophomore Mindy Vogel. “Everybody that joined worked really, really hard this season.”

Along with Vogel and Roessner, juniors Sandra Sudhoff and Sam Staugler are also new to the team this year. They have joined Lindsay Sudhoff, Sam Bihn and Leanne Pottkotter — the entirety of the 2004 squad — to form a winning mix.

Grieshop said he thinks the influx of new runners has helped push the team, and the group as a whole has a competitive desire that has been absent in the program for a while.

“We’ve got some talented runners,” said Grieshop, who coaches the team along with his wife Jenny. “We had some people come in this year who had no idea about running at all. They did a little bit of running over the summer ... but they just didn’t know what they had or what they could do ...

“They kept working and kept plugging away. Every week, regardless of what we threw at them, they tried to do it the best they could. That constant persistence has really paid off for them.

“I think more than anything we have kids out here who all have positive attitudes. They want to do well. They had a little bit of success early in the season and they’ve kept building on it.”

Grieshop said he thought prior to the season the Indians had a chance of being a state-level team. But Fort Recovery had not even made it out of the district meet since 1999.

So the Grieshops set a regional berth as their goal, and their team locked on the target. But after hitting that bull’s eye by finishing third at the Spencerville district Saturday, it was time to set their sights even higher.

“We never brought up the word state all year,” said Grieshop. “We got done with district and I said, ‘You know what girls, we can take that next step.’ ... I think we have a heckuva chance.”

On the road to making the regional round for the first time in six years, Grieshop said the Indians targeted New Bremen and Marion Local as the two teams they would need to beat.

After opening with a third-place finish at the Celina Rotary Invitational they went on to finish second behind Marion Local at the Spencerville Invitational. Two weeks later at the Brookville Invitational Fort Recovery overtook the Flyers, defeating them 39-40 for its first win of the season.

At the Midwest Athletic Conference meet the Tribe took fourth place behind defending state champion Minster, Versailles and host Coldwater and ahead of both Marion Local and New Bremen. And finally at the Spencerville district the Indians placed third behind powers Minster and Lincolnview and again ahead of Marion Local and New Bremen.

With those two schools behind them they have focused in on a new target. After traversing the regional course Thursday evening in preparation for Saturday’s event, the clearly excited team had just one goal.

“We want to beat Fort Loramie,” said Sam Bihn, knowing a state berth would come along with accomplishing that task. “I would feel like, ‘Oh my god this is awesome.’ I would probably cry.”

For Fort Recovery to start those tears flowing, get past Fort Loramie and make the state meet Grieshop said they will need to run their best times — they cannot afford to just be average. He said the two teams could be separated by just a few points.

“They’re a good team, there’s no doubt about it,” he said of the Redskins. “They’ve been to state the last several years. They have a great girls program there. ... We would like for this to be our starting point

“For us to make it, we have to go out there and run what we’re capable of — put our best effort out there. ... If we can go out there and put our best effort out, there’s no question in my mind that we can make it to state.”[[In-content Ad]]