Tribe takes fifth at Treaty City (09/05/06)

GREENVILLE, Ohio - The number of runners who have beaten Mindy Vogel doubled Saturday. That brings the grand total to two.

Vogel and Tina Roessner led the Fort Recovery girls cross country team to another impressive effort Saturday as the Indians finished fifth out of 18 teams in the Green Division at the Greenville Kiwanis Treaty City Invitational.

The Versailles Tigers won the event with 38 points ahead of Wyoming (Cincinnati) with 84. Coldwater (121) was third followed by West Liberty-Salem (157) and the Indians (178).

"I was pretty thrilled with what the girls did," said FRHS coach Jason Grieshop. "As a team we really competed. ... The kids really were determined.

"It was nice to see."

Vogel pushed out to the early lead, but was third at the one-mile mark behind freshman Taylor Huffman and sophomore Mary Prakel, both of Versailles. She remained third as the lead runners crossed the bridge back over Greenville Creek at Treaty of Greenville State Park.

She was still third coming down the final stretch, and was third 10 steps from the finish line. But Vogel kept pushing, and her lean across the finish line was just enough to wrest away the runner-up finish.

The rally gave the Fort Recovery junior a career-best time of 19-minutes, 54.2 seconds, just one 10th faster than Prakel, who finished 11th in the state meet last season. Versailles' Huffman won the race in 19:40.5.

Vogel's previous best time was a 20:26 at the season-opening Celina Rotary Invitational. She opened with a second-place finish at Celina behind Anna's Sara Schulze (fourth in the state in 2005), then won the Mercer County meet.

"Mindy has got that rare ability to go back and find something else," said Grieshop. "When push comes to shove and there's a race, she just flat out wants to beat the person next to her.

"You know Mindy is going to give it everything she has."

Following Vogel's career-best time, Roessner started a string of season bests as all of the top five Tribe runners posted their fastest times of the year.

Roessner was 16th at the mile mark, but passed several runners during the portion of the race on the north side of Greenville Creek. She pushed all the way back to eighth place before Indre Sabaliunaite rallied past her in the final 200 meters.

The Tribe sophomore still finished ninth out of 136 runners in 20:35.9. Her times in both of Fort Recovery's previous races had been in the 21:20s.

"I think Tina ran one of the smartest races of her life ... and it paid off well for her," Grieshop said.

Junior Sam Bihn ran a solid 35th place, finishing just a second behind Marion Local's Stacy Evers in 21:54.3. The No. 4 runner for the Indians, freshman Amber Heitkamp, copied Vogel's late kick.

Heitkamp had enough kick in the final 50 meters to surge past Natalie Larson of Newton Local (Pleasant Hill). She beat Larson to the finish by a half second for 54th place in 23:03.

Sam Staugler also held her own at the finish as four runners cross the line in a span of 1.6 seconds. She was second among the group in 25:29.5 for 98th place, less than one second back of Caitlin Brinkman of Badin (Hamilton). She edged Troy Christian's Rachel Arcega (25:29.9) and New Bremen's Erin Dicke (25:30.2).

The Indians are already ahead of where they were at the same point last season, when they made a surprise run to the regional and fell just two places short of a state berth. Grieshop said he's just looking for continued improvement and expects Bihn to push into the low 21s and Heitkamp to get under 22 minutes.

"Sam and Amber just have to go out there and keep working," he said. "I think they're both capable of it."

Junior high

Fort Recovery's boys and girls teams each posted solid results with Caleb Heitkamp leading the effort.

The Indian boys finished ninth out of 30 teams with 298 points, just four back of Shawnee. They were first among Midwest Athletic Conference schools, eight points ahead of 10th-place Versailles.

Fort Recovery's girls were 10th out of 27 teams, scoring 284 points.

Heitkamps carried the day for the Tribe with Caleb leading the boys team in 33rd place with a time of 12:29. He was followed by Ryan Heitkamp in 39th in 12:39, and Nicole Heitkamp was the top runner for the girls team in 14:21 for 46th place.

Filling in the final three spots for the boys team were Mathias Koester (65th - 13:05), Alan Vogel (76th - 13:08) and Derek Rammel (124th - 13:52).

Abby Huelskamp was the No. 2 runner for the Fort Recovery girls, taking 55th in 14:29. Claire Wendel made it a back-to-back Indian finish in 14:31 followed by Alexis Sutter (63rd - 14:39) and Abby Sudhoff (88th - 15:13).[[In-content Ad]]