Invite host Jay Co. finishes second (10/04/04)

PORTLAND — Alyssa Johnson stood pat, but the Patriots picked up a spot as a team at this year’s Jay County Invitational.

Johnson finished in third place on her home course for the second straight season as Jay County girls cross country team finished second with 72 points, improving from last year’s third-place effort. No. 16 Fort Wayne Snider won the girls six-team, large-school competition with 25 points, and Bellmont was third with 78.

The Patriots were third as a team last season behind No. 7 DeKalb and Bloomington South.

“I’m pretty happy,” said Jay County coach Trent Paxson. “It was a good race. I thought we would be in the top three, and we were in the top two. I’m elated about that. That’s pretty neat.”

The boys were ninth out of nine teams in the large-school division, scoring 239 points. No. 7 Snider was first with 29 points, and Bloomington South was second with 44.

Fort Wayne Luers and Northeastern Wayne each scored 50 points in the small-school girls competition. Luers took first thanks to the tie-breaking sixth runner.

Daleville won the small-school boys event with 66 points, and Southwood was second with 80.

Johnson followed much the same pattern as she did last season, although against a different pair of runners this year.

She trailed only Tynae Wilson of Snider at the one-mile mark, but dropped back to third as the runners traversed the two wooded areas of the course. She remained third where she finished behind Wilson (15-minutes, 24 seconds) and Wendy Manlan of Bellmont (15:36) with a time of 15:46.

Johnson finished a solid eight seconds ahead of the next pack of runners, with three from Snider coming in consecutively behind her.

“Alyssa’s a hard runner up there,” said Paxson, whose team will run in the Olympic Athletic Conference meet Thursday at Mounds State Park in Anderson. “She had a lot of competition today and that was good. That’s what she needs now before going into conference and sectional time.”

Amanda Johnson finished her effort in 16:50, and was in 10th place for about 16:49.90 of that time. The freshman was in the top 10 throughout, before Alexa Markley of Bellmont leaned just in front of her at the finish line.

Fellow freshman Amber Detro came in next for Jay County, finishing 17th in 17:01. Jill Roughia was 22nd in 17:27, and Jessica Mosier took 24th in 17:32 to compete the team score.

Lindsey Vesperry finished 38th in 18:48.

Paxson said he was happy with the effort from his entire team, but he knows they can be even better as the tournament series is about to begin.

“We haven’t peaked yet, and that’s OK,” he said. “We don’t want to start peaking until the sectional. I think that’s where we’re going to end up again this year.

“I would like for (Alyssa) to knock another 15 seconds off her time at least. Amanda I would like to see down to the 16:00s. The other girls need to be down 10 more seconds. I think we can do it.

“Our hopes starting off the season were to go on to the state. ... The team still has aspirations of going on to the state.”

Jay County’s boys team got its top finish from Ian Thomas, a senior, who placed 43rd in 20:09. Cory Mock was 45th in 20:10.

The rest of the Patriot top five came in as a pack, with Travis Towell 49th in 20:47, Josh Atkinson 50th in 20:50 and Mitchel Thomas 52nd in 20:52.

Doug Murray was 55th in 21:06, and Josh Hawn finished 57th in 21:48.

“One of the things we’ve been striving for all year is trying to run against good competition,” said Jay County assistant coach Lea Selvey. “Today there were a lot of really good teams here — there were some state-ranked teams. It was a good chance to see where we want to get.

“Basically we’re just trying to get times better and better. Our whole goal at the beginning of the year was to be better than we were last year, which we are ...”

Andrea Collins was 21st for Jay County in the junior varsity girls race in 19:43. Kelli Whitenack was right behind her in 22nd in 19:44.

Josh Selvey was the top finisher in junior varsity action for the Patriot boys. He placed 45th in 22:02.

Also running at the JV level for Jay County were: Edwin Clott (48th in 22:11), Cody Sutton (64th in 22:56), Josh Shatto (83rd in 24:38), Josh Stultz (101st in 26:49) and Lucas Smith (108th).[[In-content Ad]]