Patriots take down Indians in home meet

A pair of returners won the races, but both teams are seeing some of their freshmen start to catch their strides.

The host Patriots walked away with a pair of victories, while the Indians walked away happy with the improvements to their race plans and strategies.

The Jay County High School cross country team hosted the Fort Recovery Indians, taking down its neighbor to the east in both races.

The Jay County boys ran away for a 16-45 victory, while the girls only topped the Indians 27-30.

“I felt like our boys were going to win,” said JCHS coach Bruce Wood. “The girls was going to be a challenge. We wanted to let their fastest runner go ahead and go out. Then we have three runners that kind of run together and we were hoping they could take out the two or three spot. It turned out that they got one and two and we got three-four-five, so that worked out pretty well for our score.

“Our goal was to win both meets. Fort Recovery is a good program, so we’ve kind of been building program mode, so it’s good for both our boys and girls to get the win.”

With the City Treaty Invite to look forward to today, — the Patriot runners have the weekend off from competing — the Indians took a different approach to the only dual meet on their schedule

“It’s hot and we have a meet on Saturday, so we went into today to use it as a work out and they executed that,” said FRHS coach Christy Diller. “We were working on them going out hard and then finishing hard. Then we were having them do surges at different points in the race to practice changing gears because that’s something we’re not great at. We also worked on pack running.”

Joelle Kaup led the girls race from the starting shot until she crossed the finish line 22 minutes, 11.54 seconds later. The second-place spot was up for grabs most of the race.

During the first 400 meters, Anna Roessner kept pace with Kaup with freshman Riley Heitkamp in tow. Just a short distance behind, Patriot freshmen Brooklynn Byrum and Jessie Homan competed with Maddie Heitkamp for fourth.

About 200 meters into the second mile, Kaup developed a true lead, while Byrum and Homan overtook for the second spot. Fifer trailed by 30 feet with Riley Heitkamp an equal distance behind her. Two-thirds of the way through the second mile, the four ended up in a pack with the sole FRHS runner leading.

The eventual finish to the race had Heitkamp in second (22:42.29), Byrum in third (22:56.89), Fifer in fourth (23:00.50) and Homan in sixth (23:02.34).

“I was just focusing on my breathing, my steps and strides (during the final mile),” Heitkamp said.

Other scores for Jay County came from Ava May in seventh (23:52.44) and Alexis Sibray (24:12.83), while Lizzy Brunswick (25:50.30) and Paityn Wendel (25:53.12) took points away from Fort Recovery in 10th and 11th.

The Indians’ scores came from Roessner in sixth (23:42.69), Maddie Heitkamp in ninth (24:31.59) and Kendall Ranly in 13th (27:36.93).

Jay County had a stronger hold in the boys race. Outside of the first 400 meters, where Reese Diller held the top spot, the Patriots held the first four positions with Caleb Garringer, Dash Thacker, Joseph Boggs, Max Klopfenstein and later Dougie Cox. Outside of some minor changes, the runners held their positions that were established in the first mile.

The Patriots swept the top four spots with Garringer (18:26.29), Thacker (18:37.84), Boggs (19:14.47) — who ran in his first race of the season after missing the first two with an illness — and Cox (20:10.60). With only two teams at the meet, Thacker was able to see Garringer’s position for most of the meet, providing a little extra kick for the freshman.

“It was great because at practice, I’m usually trying to pace myself with him,” Thacker said. “We really push each other and build off each other.”

The final JCHS score came from Klopfenstein in sixth (21:03.46), while eighth and ninth place finishes from Cooper Glentzer (21:40.76) and Beckett Brandenburg (22:09.91) took points away from Fort Recovery.

Scores for the Indians came from Reese Diller in fifth (20:34.46), Evan Evers in seventh (21:40.08), Milo Fiely in 12th (24:08.85), Russell Hart in 13th (24:08.96) and Evan Diller in 15th (24:53.48).