Johnson, Jay win OAC titles (10/06/06)

ANDERSON - The Patriots made it four in a row Thursday as Amanda Johnson took the torch from her older sister.

Johnson won the individual Olympic Athletic Conference title Thursday at Mounds State Park in Anderson a year after finishing second to her sister Alyssa, who is now running at Taylor University. She led a dominant effort by the Jay County girls team, which took five of the top seven positions for a fourth straight OAC team title with a score of 18.

Connersville was a distant second with 38 points, and Muncie Southside scored 85. Anderson Highland did not post a team score.

The Patriot boys were last among the four teams with 108 points. Finishing ahead of them were champion Muncie Southside (24), which won its third straight title, the host Scots (32) and Connersville (88).

Johnson, a junior, went unchallenged for the top spot, finishing nine seconds ahead of freshman teammate Kylie Wellman and 15 better than Tori Adams of Anderson Highland. Her winning time in the event, which had 23 competitors, was 16-minutes, 32 seconds.

Wellman was a solid second in 16:41, with Adams third and Connersville's Alex Burns (16:55) in fourth. It was all Jay County (56-8) after that.

Senior Jessica Mosier took fifth in 16:58, freshman Kari Hemmelgarn was sixth in 17:02 and senior Allison Fullenkamp placed seventh in 17:13. Hemmelgarn's time was 17 seconds better than her previous top mark set at the Blackford Invitational, pushing to fourth on the team for the first time this season.

Freshman Tevan Nichols posted the best time for the Jay County boys with a 16th-place effort in 18:27 in the 26-runner field. Brady Mills was 20th in 20:12.

They were followed by Josh Selvey (23rd - 22:32), Ty Fullenkamp (24th - 23:02) and Branden Brinton (25th - 24:52).

Also running for the Patriots were Tina Gingrasso (12th - 18:05) and Cassie Laux (17th - 18:58) for the girls and Devin Willoughby (26th - 27:10) for the boys.[[In-content Ad]]