July 23, 2014 at 2:10 p.m.
Johnson to state as Jay places 8th (10/27/03)
JCHS girls cross country
Johnson to state as Jay places 8th (10/27/03)
FORT WAYNE — And it’s back to Bloomington for Alyssa Johnson.
The Jay County sophomore earned a return trip to the state cross country meet with a 12th-place finish at the New Haven Semi-state Saturday. The Patriots placed eighth in the 20-team field with a total of 240.
No. 7 Northridge was first with 62, No. 9 DeKalb placed second with 89 and No. 5 Fort Wayne Concordia was third with 119. Also advancing to the state meet as a team were No. 14 Homestead and Fort Wayne Northrop.
They will join the top five teams and top 15 runners from each of the other three semi-state meets in the state finals. That meet will be Saturday at 1 p.m. at Indiana University.
“That’s an excellent job,” said Jay County coach Trent Paxson. “Their goal was to get to semi-state, and they could have been content just being there. They weren’t. They were striving to go on.”
The Patriots knew they would have to beat Northrop for a chance at the state meet. Their first two runners, Johnson and senior Nicole VanSkyock, finished in front of the top two from from Northrop, but it was not quite enough to earn the team another week of running.
Johnson will be making her second trip to the state meet after finishing the semi-state course in 15:08.26, less than a half a second ahead of Annina Gruber of Western. She placed eighth in last year’s semistate and was 46th out of 169 runners at the state meet, finishing eighth among the meet’s 36 freshman runners.
Paxson said he hopes to see her improve on that this year, pointing to the high 20s as a good goal.
Following Johnson at the semistate meet were Nicole VanSkyock with a time of 15:57 in 42nd and freshman Allison Fullenkamp in 50th in 16:05.
Freshman Jessica Mosier was 85th in 16:50, and junior Jill Roughia finished the team scoring in 96th in 17:00.
“We had an excellent group of times,” said Paxson. “Nikki ran a good race. All the girls did all the way through. Our slowest time was an 18:05. That was Vanessa (Wilkins’) fastest time all year.”
Wilkins was 131st for the Patriots, and Lindsey Vesperry was 118th in 17:37.
Having reached their semi-state goal this year, Jay County’s girls already have their sights set on what 2004 could hold.
“The girls were really excited to get to semistate,” said Paxson. “They said their goal next year is to get the team on to state. It was a good experience.”[[In-content Ad]]
The Jay County sophomore earned a return trip to the state cross country meet with a 12th-place finish at the New Haven Semi-state Saturday. The Patriots placed eighth in the 20-team field with a total of 240.
No. 7 Northridge was first with 62, No. 9 DeKalb placed second with 89 and No. 5 Fort Wayne Concordia was third with 119. Also advancing to the state meet as a team were No. 14 Homestead and Fort Wayne Northrop.
They will join the top five teams and top 15 runners from each of the other three semi-state meets in the state finals. That meet will be Saturday at 1 p.m. at Indiana University.
“That’s an excellent job,” said Jay County coach Trent Paxson. “Their goal was to get to semi-state, and they could have been content just being there. They weren’t. They were striving to go on.”
The Patriots knew they would have to beat Northrop for a chance at the state meet. Their first two runners, Johnson and senior Nicole VanSkyock, finished in front of the top two from from Northrop, but it was not quite enough to earn the team another week of running.
Johnson will be making her second trip to the state meet after finishing the semi-state course in 15:08.26, less than a half a second ahead of Annina Gruber of Western. She placed eighth in last year’s semistate and was 46th out of 169 runners at the state meet, finishing eighth among the meet’s 36 freshman runners.
Paxson said he hopes to see her improve on that this year, pointing to the high 20s as a good goal.
Following Johnson at the semistate meet were Nicole VanSkyock with a time of 15:57 in 42nd and freshman Allison Fullenkamp in 50th in 16:05.
Freshman Jessica Mosier was 85th in 16:50, and junior Jill Roughia finished the team scoring in 96th in 17:00.
“We had an excellent group of times,” said Paxson. “Nikki ran a good race. All the girls did all the way through. Our slowest time was an 18:05. That was Vanessa (Wilkins’) fastest time all year.”
Wilkins was 131st for the Patriots, and Lindsey Vesperry was 118th in 17:37.
Having reached their semi-state goal this year, Jay County’s girls already have their sights set on what 2004 could hold.
“The girls were really excited to get to semistate,” said Paxson. “They said their goal next year is to get the team on to state. It was a good experience.”[[In-content Ad]]
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