State champs on top

By CHRIS SCHANZ
and RAY COONEY
The Commercial Review
The dramatics in sports lead to great stories.
The comebacks. The Cinderellas. The dominating performances.
The 2015 calendar year was full of all of those, and then some.
So what was the biggest sports story of the past 12 months?
The state champions.
Fort Recovery High School’s football team won the Division VII state championship on Dec. 4, becoming the first local team to win a state title in nearly two decades.
It tops a list of 10 stories that include state medals, sectional championships and another FRHS run at the state finals.
It also includes an individual performance that ranks second all-time in the history of the state, and an abrupt coaching change during the summer.
It was a great year for local sports, and one can only hope as we move into 2016, the next 366 days will bring more of the same.
The rest of the top 10 stories are:
2 – Lyla Muhlenkamp shatters 3-point record
3 – Craig Teagle resigns
4 – Fort Recovery baseball reaches final four
5 – Saywer Miller wins third state medal
6 – Jay County girls swim team wins first sectional title
7 – James Keen and Anne Vormohr earn swimming state medals
8 – Lizzy Schoenlein finishes sixth at state
9 – Bailey McIntire earns state medal
10 – Megan Wellman wins sectional title

1. State champions
One year after making a playoff appearance for the first time in school history, the Fort Recovery football team continued its trend of record-breaking performance by steamrolling through the postseason to claim the program’s first state championship.
The eighth-ranked Indians (13-2) beat 2014 Division VI state champion Minster (33-21) in the regional championship, then knocked off No. 4 McComb (34-14) in the semifinal in Lima and No. 2 Mogadore (33-14) in the Division VII title game at Ohio Stadium.
The Tribe’s convincing victory at the state’s highest level left no doubt the Indians deserved to be there. The manner in which they won — scoring 94 seconds into the game and leading 27-7 at halftime — stunned the Wildcats and sent ripples through the state.

2. Lights out Lyla
No one in the history of Jay County has hit more 3-pointers in a game than Lyla Muhlenkamp.
In fact, only one girl in state history has made more in one game.
Muhlenkamp shattered the previous record of seven 3-pointers by draining a dozen Dec. 15 against Blackford.
She hit her eighth triple nearly three minutes into the third quarter, but she wasn’t done.
The senior hit four more — she finished 12-of-19 from long distance and was 13-for-21 for the game. She also had a chance to set a new JCHS single-game scoring record of 41 points, but made two of three free throws with one tenth of a second remaining to tie Shannon Freeman’s record of 40 points.

3. Teagle leaves
In a surprising move, longtime Jay County boys basketball coach Craig Teagle left for the same job at sectional rival Huntington North.
In 17 seasons with Teagle at the helm, the Patriots were 250-137 — nearly half of the school’s 524 wins in 40 years. Teagle won five sectional championships and earned a berth in the Class 3A state title game during the 2005-06 season.
Teagle’s teams were best known for a stingy defense, and the Patriots often led the state in defensive average. The 33.1 points per game JCHS allowed last year was a school record, which helped give the Patriots their 14th consecutive winning season.

4. Tribe in the final
Fort Recovery started off a stellar calendar year in the spring when its baseball team reached the state semifinal for the first time in six decades.
The Indians won the first 17 games of the year, surpassing records for wins to begin a season (previous was 11) and longest winning streak (13).
Fort Recovery beat Coldwater on April 28, its first win against the Cavaliers since 1981.
The Tribe went on to defeat Midwest Athletic Conference foe Minster for the team’s first district title since 1952, held off Cincinnati Country Day a week later to win the regional title.
Fort Recovery fell to eventual state runner-up Newark Catholic in the Division IV state semifinal.

5. Miller medals
South Adams senior Sawyer Miller solidified himself as the greatest Starfire wrestler in history by earning his third state medal.
Miller dominated his way through the state tournament as a senior with his only loss in sudden victory during the 120-pound state title match Feb. 21 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse.
The Starfire, who was ranked second in the state, finished with a school-record 158 career wins, including finishing fourth at state as a freshman and third as a sophomore.
Miller is continuing his wrestling career at Indiana Tech.

6. JC breaks through
It took 40 years, but when the Jay County High School girls swim team finally won its first sectional championship in February, it did so in emphatic fashion.
There was never any doubt as the Patriots set record in three of the first four events on the way to a total of 395 points, 71 more than runner-up South Adams. The historic victory included sectional championships in seven events — two individual titles each for cousins Anne Vormohr and Sophie Bader and one for Alex Bader in addition to two relays.

7. Back-to-back medals
Jay County junior Anne Vormohr and senior James Keen both earned state medals in the 100-yard backstroke.
Vormohr swam a career-best time of 55.79 seconds to place fifth for the second time in three years. She led a JCHS quartet of girls who combined to finish in the top 16 in six events, scoring 47 points to place 15th overall Feb. 14 at Indiana University Natatorium in Indianapolis.
Two weeks later, Keen became a first-time state medalist by finishing sixth in 51.42. He was just the fourth boy from Jay County to earn a state medal and the first since Caleb Bye (diving) in 2003. Keen was the first Patriot swimmer to medal since Jason Arnold won two in 1990.

8. Schoenlein sixth
Jay County sophomore Lizzy Schoenlein fought through an injured toe to finish tied for sixth on the balance beam in the gymnastics state finals March 21 at Worthen Arena in Muncie.
One year after advancing as a team for the first time in program history, Schoenlein was the lone Patriot individual at the state meet. In her final event, Schoenlein altered her routine because of a toe injury, and was nearly flawless to score a 9.35.
She became the first JCHS state medalist since Nadlie Runyon was sixth on the beam in 2009.

9. Medal for McIntire
Bailey McIntire cemented his legacy as the best cross country runner in South Adams history by earning a state medal Oct. 31.
Competing in the IHSAA Boys Cross Country State Finals for the third time in as many years, McIntire ran his second-fastest time — 15 minutes, 34.6 seconds — to finish 11th, earning the first medal in the history of the program.
It was sweet redemption for the junior, who was passed at the finish line as a sophomore and missed a state medal by one tenth of a second.
Seventeen of the 20 medalists were seniors, and McIntire was second fastest of the three who weren’t.

10. Sectional champion
After having missed most of her junior cross country season with an injury, Megan Wellman was on a mission during her final year with the Patriots.
Returning to the course where she had won the Delta Invitational two weeks earlier, Wellman was conservative early in the sectional race before making her move at the 500-meter mark. She had a 50-meter lead by the 2-mile mark and kept pulling away to win the sectional title by 40 seconds in 19 minutes, 24.78 seconds.
A week later she set a school record, finishing in 19:00.2 for fifth place in the regional.