October 12, 2019 at 8:31 p.m.
JC girls advance, boys' season ends
Keihn leads the way with fifth-place finish
JC girls advance, boys' season ends
MUNCIE — The Patriots don’t worry much about running out to the front of the pack at the beginning of the race.
They’re far more concerned about where they are when they cross the finish line.
Jay County High School’s girls cross country team put four runners in the top 21 Saturday as it finished third at the IHSAA sectional meet hosted by Delta at Muncie Sportsplex.
“The strategy that we try to employ is to pack it up at the beginning, stay together as group and then when you’re getting about halfway through the run we want to see them start making it more of an individual race and start picking off other teams,” said JCHS coach Paul Hyatt. “They ran good races. …
“I’m super happy. We’re moving on. You always want to win it, but it’s not disappointing to be moving on in a race like this.”
The only other squad with four runners in the top 21 was champion Yorktown, which cruised to the title with 70 points. Delta scored 107 to edge the Patriots (112) for the runner-up spot. Cowan (125) and Muncie Central (128) followed as the top five teams in the 12-team field earned regional berths.
The Jay County boys had their season come to an end with an eighth-place finish as they scored 217 points. Monroe Central (50) won its first team title in school history by nine points over second-place Wapahani. Also advancing to the regional meet were Yorktown (84), Muncie Central (107) and Delta (108).
While Randolph Southern’s Leah Keesling — she would go on to cruise to the sectional title by 42 seconds in 19 minutes, 4.1 seconds — led a group of runners to the front to start the race, the Patriot quartet of Lydia Keihn, Sophia Fugiett, Raven Weaver and Lindy Wood stayed together between 15th and 20th places. As the field thinned out during the first 2 kilometers at the wide-open Sportsplex, Keihn was the first to make a move.
By the time the runners were trotting along the east side of the facility’s parking lot, Keihn had moved up into a pack of four runners fighting it out for seventh through 10th places. She would eventually leave that group behind and pick off a couple more competitors en route to a fifth-place finish in 20:35.1.
“I was just pacing myself through the first mile and seeing where I was through the race,” said Keihn, a freshman. “The second mile I was keeping that pace, and the third mile I was pushing myself a little bit harder.
“I try to pass people. I let people sprint out at the beginning and then I’ll start catching up to them because I know that they will die down because that’s what I used to do, so I learned from that.”
Fugiett, a junior, made her move a little later than her freshman teammate, stepping up a few spots to 13th place with her time of 21:34.
Meanwhile, sophomores Weaver and Wood stayed side-by-side most of the way. Weaver moved just ahead at the end to place 20th in 22:12.9 while Wood was just over a second behind in 21st.
Lita Chowning finished in 25:38.1 for 56th place to round out the team score for the Patriots, who will return to Muncie Sportsplex for Saturday’s regional meet.
“They ran about what I figured they would run it in,” said Hyatt. “Out on the course, they were right where I wanted them to be.”
Jay County’s top boys were situated in the middle of the group of runners early on in the race and that’s about where they stayed throughout. Thomas LeMaster posted the Patriots’ top time of 19:15.1 for 37th place in the field of 82 runners with Ben Hunter five seconds behind in 39th.
LeMaster narrowly missed an individual regional berth as the top 10 runners not on qualifying teams also advance. He was No. 11, trailing Winchester’s Gage Patterson by just over three seconds.
Mitchell Winner (46th – 19:35.6), Aaron Funkhouser (49th – 19:50.2) and Zade Fosnaugh (51st – 19:59.8) filled out the rest of the team score.
“They’re mostly a young group of guys,” said Hyatt, who had five underclassmen in his lineup. “They continue to work hard. They keep getting faster. They keep getting stronger.”
Also running Saturday were Veronique Coppock (61st – 26:16.3) and Erica Hathaway (75th – 29:13.2) for the JCHS girls and Dustin Harris (55th – 20:06.8) and Seth Wilson (65th – 20:53.3) for the Patriot boys.
They’re far more concerned about where they are when they cross the finish line.
Jay County High School’s girls cross country team put four runners in the top 21 Saturday as it finished third at the IHSAA sectional meet hosted by Delta at Muncie Sportsplex.
“The strategy that we try to employ is to pack it up at the beginning, stay together as group and then when you’re getting about halfway through the run we want to see them start making it more of an individual race and start picking off other teams,” said JCHS coach Paul Hyatt. “They ran good races. …
“I’m super happy. We’re moving on. You always want to win it, but it’s not disappointing to be moving on in a race like this.”
The only other squad with four runners in the top 21 was champion Yorktown, which cruised to the title with 70 points. Delta scored 107 to edge the Patriots (112) for the runner-up spot. Cowan (125) and Muncie Central (128) followed as the top five teams in the 12-team field earned regional berths.
The Jay County boys had their season come to an end with an eighth-place finish as they scored 217 points. Monroe Central (50) won its first team title in school history by nine points over second-place Wapahani. Also advancing to the regional meet were Yorktown (84), Muncie Central (107) and Delta (108).
While Randolph Southern’s Leah Keesling — she would go on to cruise to the sectional title by 42 seconds in 19 minutes, 4.1 seconds — led a group of runners to the front to start the race, the Patriot quartet of Lydia Keihn, Sophia Fugiett, Raven Weaver and Lindy Wood stayed together between 15th and 20th places. As the field thinned out during the first 2 kilometers at the wide-open Sportsplex, Keihn was the first to make a move.
By the time the runners were trotting along the east side of the facility’s parking lot, Keihn had moved up into a pack of four runners fighting it out for seventh through 10th places. She would eventually leave that group behind and pick off a couple more competitors en route to a fifth-place finish in 20:35.1.
“I was just pacing myself through the first mile and seeing where I was through the race,” said Keihn, a freshman. “The second mile I was keeping that pace, and the third mile I was pushing myself a little bit harder.
“I try to pass people. I let people sprint out at the beginning and then I’ll start catching up to them because I know that they will die down because that’s what I used to do, so I learned from that.”
Fugiett, a junior, made her move a little later than her freshman teammate, stepping up a few spots to 13th place with her time of 21:34.
Meanwhile, sophomores Weaver and Wood stayed side-by-side most of the way. Weaver moved just ahead at the end to place 20th in 22:12.9 while Wood was just over a second behind in 21st.
Lita Chowning finished in 25:38.1 for 56th place to round out the team score for the Patriots, who will return to Muncie Sportsplex for Saturday’s regional meet.
“They ran about what I figured they would run it in,” said Hyatt. “Out on the course, they were right where I wanted them to be.”
Jay County’s top boys were situated in the middle of the group of runners early on in the race and that’s about where they stayed throughout. Thomas LeMaster posted the Patriots’ top time of 19:15.1 for 37th place in the field of 82 runners with Ben Hunter five seconds behind in 39th.
LeMaster narrowly missed an individual regional berth as the top 10 runners not on qualifying teams also advance. He was No. 11, trailing Winchester’s Gage Patterson by just over three seconds.
Mitchell Winner (46th – 19:35.6), Aaron Funkhouser (49th – 19:50.2) and Zade Fosnaugh (51st – 19:59.8) filled out the rest of the team score.
“They’re mostly a young group of guys,” said Hyatt, who had five underclassmen in his lineup. “They continue to work hard. They keep getting faster. They keep getting stronger.”
Also running Saturday were Veronique Coppock (61st – 26:16.3) and Erica Hathaway (75th – 29:13.2) for the JCHS girls and Dustin Harris (55th – 20:06.8) and Seth Wilson (65th – 20:53.3) for the Patriot boys.
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