Future bright for area athletes

Wait ’til next year.
Those words are typically uttered in gloom following a disappointing season.
Consider this use a far more excited utterance of the phrase.
There’s so much to be optimistic about on the local sports front. And that optimism isn’t based on some pie-in-the-sky dreams, it’s grounded firmly in reality.
Consider just some of what has happened in the last 10 days:
•Addie Wanner of South Adams finished 13th in the state in the 100-meter hurdles and Bailey McIntire placed 16th in the 1,600 run.
•Fort Recovery’s Robby LeFevre earned a state medal in the 200 dash, and his classmate Cassy Martin finished 13th in the 400 dash.
•The South Adams softball team won the school’s first regional championship in any girls sport with a 14-1 destruction of Eastside.
•Jay County’s baseball team played in the sectional championship game for the first time since 2008.
With the 2015-16 prep sports season nearing completion — the only local athlete remaining is SAHS’s McGerran Clouser, who will play in the golf regional Friday — those performances can’t help but make fans think about the possibilities for next spring.
Let’s start with the Starfire runners.
The top nine athletes in each event at the track and field state finals earn a state medal. Five of the runners who finished ahead of Wanner, a sophomore, on Friday evening were seniors.
After coming up just 0.07 seconds short of making the finals this year, she’ll head into her junior season with state-medal expectations.
Eight of the athletes who finished ahead of McIntire, including six of the nine medalists, were seniors. He will come back as a senior hungry for state success, which by that time he may already have under his belt as he will also be one of the best returning cross country runners in the state.
The future may be even brighter for Fort Recovery’s top runners, who are both freshmen.
Martin placed 13th in Division III in the 400 run. She was one of just three freshmen in a field that included four seniors in the top 10.
LeFevre proved himself to already be one of the elite sprinters in the state, following up a regional performance that included the 100 dash championship by earning a state medal in the 200 dash.
He completed his first high school season by finishing seventh in the 200 dash, a result that disappointed him because he wasn’t able to match his time (22.35 seconds) and place (fourth) from the previous day. But considering that he entered the meet as the No. 13 seed, he should be nothing but proud. He was the only freshman medalist in the event.
Beyond that, LeFevre was the only freshman in all three divisions to even qualify for the state meet in the 100 dash. He placed 10th in that race in Friday’s preliminaries, just 0.02 seconds away from making the finals.
Shifting to the diamond, look at what is brewing with the South Adams softball team.
The Starfires just completed their best season in school history, winning 23 games and earning sectional and regional titles in the process. Eight of the 10 players who were in the starting lineup for Saturday’s semi-state semifinal will be back in 2017.
That list includes pitcher Katelin Augsburger, who won a school-record 18 games this season and struck out 222 batters in 155 1/3 innings on her way to becoming a first-team All-Allen County Athletic Conference selection. Also back as seniors next year will be third baseman Casi Evans, left fielder Abby Myers and first baseman Morgan Alberson. Joining them will be juniors Lexi Dellinger (second base), Isabella Ramirez (shortstop) and Tori Raugh (designated player), and sophomore Kayla LeFever (right field).
Jay County’s baseball team finished 14-13, upset Guerin Catholic in the sectional semifinal and fought hard in a 3-0 loss to Delta with the tournament title on the line.
The Patriots will lose just four seniors to graduation, and the starting lineup for the sectional title game included three freshmen and two sophomores. That doesn’t include Cole Stigleman, who was Jay County’s leading hitter during his freshman season but missed most of his sophomore campaign this year with a foot injury.
In Stigleman’s absence, freshman Ryan Schlechty played a strong shortstop while hitting .329, second best on the team. Junior catcher Jacob Geesaman hit .400 to lead the squad, and sophomore third baseman Max Moser came in at .328.
These athletes and teams had a lot of success this year, and this is just from a handful of spring sports. There’s plenty more to look forward to in the fall and winter as well.
Wait ’til next year.
The future is bright.