EJ pair makes top 25 (10/01/07)

CARMEL - Austin Bentz and Amber Huelskamp each earned All-State honors thanks to their efforts at the Indiana Middle School Cross Country Championships.

Bentz placed 15th and Huelskamp was 16th to lead the East Jay Middle School boys and girls teams to 12th out of 24 teams and 11th out of 22 respectively. The top 25 runners in each race earned All-State honors.

West Jay also competed at the championships, but did not have enough runners for a team score.

In the boys race Bentz, an eighth grader, was just 47 seconds off the winning pace. He crossed the finish line in 10-minutes, 47 seconds for his 15th-place finish.

Huelskamp, a sixth grader, turned in the top time for East Jay by 43 seconds. She finished in 12:12 for 16th place, 1:04 off of the championship time.

Elizabeth Lennartz led all West Jay runners, placing 76th in the girls race at 13:19. Kyle Selvey topped the Eagle boys in 116th at 12:37.

Bradley Leuthold followed Bentz for the East Jay boys in 43rd at 11:24. Joining the top pair were Edward Muhlenkamp (79th - 12:01), Jordan McBride (109th - 12:31) and Seth Ainsworth (118th - 12:40).

Katie Simmons trailed Huelskamp for the EJMS girls in 52nd place at 12:55. LeAnn Horn and Abigail Johnson finished right behind Lennartz to make it three in a row for Jay County with Horn 77th in 13:20 and Johnson 78th at 13:21. Tiffany Huelskamp capped the Chief team score in 100th with a time of 13:42.

Miranda Gerber followed Tiffany Huelskamp in 101st for the West Jay girls, and Dylan Friddle placed 149th at 13:51 for the WJMS boys.

Also running for East Jay were Laura Bowen (108th - 13:51) and Julie Valentine (112th - 13:58) in the girls race and Colby Cline (128th - 12:58) and Aaron Loy (133rd - 13:02) in the boys race.[[In-content Ad]]