July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Tribe falls short of state trip (10/31/05)
FRHS cross country
Tribe falls short of state trip (10/31/05)
By By RAY COONEY-
TROY, Ohio — It wasn’t meant to be this year. But the Indians plan on making it happen next season.
Fort Recovery’s girls cross country team fell short of a state berth Saturday, finishing sixth at the 16-team Division III Troy regional. Only the top four squads moved on to Columbus.
However, for a team which hadn’t seen regional action in six years, just staying in contention for a trip to the state meet was quite an accomplishment.
“It’s kind of a disappointing end, but ... these girls worked their butts off just to get to this point this year,” said FRHS coach Jason Grieshop, whose seven-member team had four first-year runners. “To be able to compete on this stage and look like a good team out here, we didn’t have our best, but we looked like a good team. People took notice of that. ...
“We’ve just got to go out next year and build off what we started.
“These kids put in so much hard work, and most of them are coming back next year. ... They’ve really come out of nowhere.”
Fort Recovery scored 212 points at Troy, 24 behind fifth-place Anna. Earning spots at the state meet were defending state champion No. 1 Minster (50), No. 5 Versailles and No. 7 Van Wert Lincolnview (138).
Anna junior Sara Schulze won the individual regional title with a great late surge to finish in 19-minutes, 29 seconds.
Sam Bihn was the No. 3 runner on the Fort Recovery squad, but turned in the performance of the day with an impressive group of Indian fans on hand to cheer on their runners.
Bihn, a sophomore and one of the team’s few experienced runners, had the best race of her career. She finished in a personal-best time of 21:26, 20-plus seconds better than her previous record.
Her time was 25 seconds faster than just a week earlier at the Spencerville district meet.
“Sam Bihn, I don’t know what she ate last night or what she ate for breakfast this morning, but she went out today on what would be the toughest stage of the year — the most pressure — and ran her best time by 20-30 seconds,” said Grieshop. “That’s a heck of an accomplishment.”
Mindy Vogel posted the best finish of any Fort Recovery runner as she was in contention for an individual berth in the state meet — the top 16 individuals move on regardless of team finish — as the runners approached the one-mile mark.
She slipped back a bit after 1.5 miles and was 18th with just three-quarters of a mile to go.
But, she was unable to make a comeback down the home stretch, finishing 21st in 20:40.
Tina Roessner sat in 30th position for much of the first two miles of the race before making her move in the middle. She pushed past several runners near the two-mile mark and finished 25th with a time of 20:53.
Sandra Sudhoff placed 72nd for the Indians in 22:04, and Lindsay Sudhoff completed the team score in 89th at 22:58.
Also running for the Tribe were Sam Staugler (103rd - 24:07) and Leanne Pottkotter (119th - 26:19).
Grieshop said his crew just didn’t have the right kind of day to be able to take down their target — the Fort Loramie Redskins.
“We couldn’t be average,” he said. “Fort Loramie is a state caliber team. They’ve been there year after year after year. We had to run our best to compete with them.”
Still, after a run of difficult years Grieshop was thrilled to see the Tribe finish ahead of 10 teams at the regional meet. Among those were Midwest Athletic Conference rival Marion Local (11th - 258) and all four Cincinnati-area teams.
Fort Recovery had not come close to getting an individual, let alone the whole team, to the regional meet in each of the last two seasons with no runners finishing in the top 25 in district action in 2003 or 2004. The schools’ last state berth came in 1999 — it’s last trip to the regional — when it was third in regional action and 12th in the state.
Having ended the regional drought this season, Grieshop hopes the Indians can do the same to the state drought next year.
“The goal next year without a doubt is getting through this meet and going to state,” he said. “I think we have the talent within us. We have the runners we need, it’s just a matter of getting ... to that next level, and getting their confidence to a point where they truly believe they can do it.
“This year they thought they could, they had a feeling that it might happen, and now they know how much more they have to work to get there.
“We’ll get there.”[[In-content Ad]]
Fort Recovery’s girls cross country team fell short of a state berth Saturday, finishing sixth at the 16-team Division III Troy regional. Only the top four squads moved on to Columbus.
However, for a team which hadn’t seen regional action in six years, just staying in contention for a trip to the state meet was quite an accomplishment.
“It’s kind of a disappointing end, but ... these girls worked their butts off just to get to this point this year,” said FRHS coach Jason Grieshop, whose seven-member team had four first-year runners. “To be able to compete on this stage and look like a good team out here, we didn’t have our best, but we looked like a good team. People took notice of that. ...
“We’ve just got to go out next year and build off what we started.
“These kids put in so much hard work, and most of them are coming back next year. ... They’ve really come out of nowhere.”
Fort Recovery scored 212 points at Troy, 24 behind fifth-place Anna. Earning spots at the state meet were defending state champion No. 1 Minster (50), No. 5 Versailles and No. 7 Van Wert Lincolnview (138).
Anna junior Sara Schulze won the individual regional title with a great late surge to finish in 19-minutes, 29 seconds.
Sam Bihn was the No. 3 runner on the Fort Recovery squad, but turned in the performance of the day with an impressive group of Indian fans on hand to cheer on their runners.
Bihn, a sophomore and one of the team’s few experienced runners, had the best race of her career. She finished in a personal-best time of 21:26, 20-plus seconds better than her previous record.
Her time was 25 seconds faster than just a week earlier at the Spencerville district meet.
“Sam Bihn, I don’t know what she ate last night or what she ate for breakfast this morning, but she went out today on what would be the toughest stage of the year — the most pressure — and ran her best time by 20-30 seconds,” said Grieshop. “That’s a heck of an accomplishment.”
Mindy Vogel posted the best finish of any Fort Recovery runner as she was in contention for an individual berth in the state meet — the top 16 individuals move on regardless of team finish — as the runners approached the one-mile mark.
She slipped back a bit after 1.5 miles and was 18th with just three-quarters of a mile to go.
But, she was unable to make a comeback down the home stretch, finishing 21st in 20:40.
Tina Roessner sat in 30th position for much of the first two miles of the race before making her move in the middle. She pushed past several runners near the two-mile mark and finished 25th with a time of 20:53.
Sandra Sudhoff placed 72nd for the Indians in 22:04, and Lindsay Sudhoff completed the team score in 89th at 22:58.
Also running for the Tribe were Sam Staugler (103rd - 24:07) and Leanne Pottkotter (119th - 26:19).
Grieshop said his crew just didn’t have the right kind of day to be able to take down their target — the Fort Loramie Redskins.
“We couldn’t be average,” he said. “Fort Loramie is a state caliber team. They’ve been there year after year after year. We had to run our best to compete with them.”
Still, after a run of difficult years Grieshop was thrilled to see the Tribe finish ahead of 10 teams at the regional meet. Among those were Midwest Athletic Conference rival Marion Local (11th - 258) and all four Cincinnati-area teams.
Fort Recovery had not come close to getting an individual, let alone the whole team, to the regional meet in each of the last two seasons with no runners finishing in the top 25 in district action in 2003 or 2004. The schools’ last state berth came in 1999 — it’s last trip to the regional — when it was third in regional action and 12th in the state.
Having ended the regional drought this season, Grieshop hopes the Indians can do the same to the state drought next year.
“The goal next year without a doubt is getting through this meet and going to state,” he said. “I think we have the talent within us. We have the runners we need, it’s just a matter of getting ... to that next level, and getting their confidence to a point where they truly believe they can do it.
“This year they thought they could, they had a feeling that it might happen, and now they know how much more they have to work to get there.
“We’ll get there.”[[In-content Ad]]
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