Tobe, Brunswick qualify

MINSTER, Ohio - The second day of the district tournament brought three more regional-qualifying spots for the Indians.

After Holly Brunswick reached the regional meet with a pair of top-four finishes Thursday at the Division III district competition, Sam Tobe matched that effort Saturday. Brunswick picked up a berth in a third event, giving the Fort Recovery High School track teams three regional competitors in a total of six events.

Tobe and Brunswick combined to lead the Tribe girls to a 57.5-point effort, placing them sixth out of the 15 scoring teams at the district meet. The host Minster Wildcats outdistanced runner-up Marion Local by 25 points with a total of 104.5.

Fort Recovery's boys scored 14 points to finish 12th out of 16 teams while Minster was first with 114.

After Thursday's preliminary race, Tobe was the No. 7 seed in the 1,600-meter run. But she came up big in the finals, easily picking up the fourth and final regional-qualifying spot with a time of 5 minutes, 43.3 seconds. She was more than 15 seconds ahead of fifth-place finisher Emma Boggs of St. John's.

Tobe, a freshman, cruised to the regional in the 3,200 run as well as one of just four runners to break the 13-minute mark. She finished just four seconds out of third place in 12:39.14.

Brunswick, who finished third in both the long jump and high jump Thursday, earned a third regional berth Saturday in the 100 hurdles. She placed fourth in the event by turning in a time of 16.5 while Minster's Kayla Wuebker was fifth in 17.02.

Tobe, Brunswick and Aaron Vagedes (long jump) will compete at the Division III regional meet at Troy Wednesday at 4 p.m.

The Indians fell agonizingly short of advancing in a couple of events, most notably the 4x100 relay. The team of Abby May, Kylie Kahlig, Kelsey Fiely and Brunswick, which has repeatedly broken the school record in the event all year, finished fifth just two hundredths of a second behind the team from Lincolnview in 52.61.

Kahlig, who finished fifth by just three-quarters of an inch in the shot put Thursday, suffered another heart-breaker in the 200 dash. She finished fifth again, trailing fourth-place finisher Kyleigh Suchland of New Bremen by 12 hundredths of a second.

Olivia Schwieterman also had a near-miss in the pole vault as she and three other vaulters all cleared the bar at 8 feet, six inches. But Schwieterman, Bailey Valvelage and Mindy Hartings all had more misses than Alicia Ankerman of St. John's and were bumped to a three-way tie for fifth place.

Also scoring points for the Indians Saturday were Abby May (sixth - 300 hurdles), Abby Huelskamp (sixth - 800 run) Alexis Sutter (seventh - 1,600 run), Vagedes (seventh - 200 dash) and Heitkamp (eighth - 3,200 run). The girls 4x200 relay team of Amy Link, Fiely, May and Kahlig also finished seventh.[[In-content Ad]]