More medals

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — With each passing year, Robby LeFevre climbs the podium in his best event.

He earns more hardware too.

LeFevre, a Fort Recovery High School junior, earned two individual medals and was part of a relay that was once again one of the tops in the state during the OHSAA Division III Track and Field State Finals on Saturday morning at Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium on the campus of Ohio State University.

“He had a big day,” said FRHS coach Kylee Moody. “Four events yesterday, turn back and run four events today.”

LeFevre, who was seeded second in the 200-meter dash heading into today’s finals, admitted the amount he ran over the two-day meet took its toll by the time of his last race at 11:25 a.m.

“I was very disappointed,” he said. The junior was out front as the sprinters made the turn to the front stretch. “I ran eight events over the course of 20-some hours. My legs were completely dead. I just couldn’t finish through. It’s what it was. I was out front, I just couldn’t finish through.”

With a preliminary time of 22.16 seconds, he was seeded second behind Wellsville’s Justin Wright. That put him in lane five between Centerburg’s Tyler Boals (22.22) and Wright.

LeFevre, who tied for seventh in the event as a freshman and was fifth a year ago, led with 40 meters remaining. But Youngstown Valley Christian’s Jamynk Jackson and Boals pulled away from the pack, and Jackson edged Boals by four-thousandths of a second to claim the state championship.

LeFevre placed fourth in 22.05 seconds, which would have been runner-up in the 2017 state finals.

“He had a great start to his 200, just couldn’t close it out,” Moody said. “Nothing to hang your head over. He ran a phenomenal race up against some tough competition.”

Speaking of tough competition, the 100 dash was nothing short of a quick logjam. Wright entered as the top seed having run 10.79 seconds in the prelims. Edon’s Logan Bloir was the only other runner to break 11 seconds, and the seven remaining finalists were all within sixth-hundredths of a second from one another.

Bloir claimed the state championship in 10.73 seconds, and Wright was runner-up in 10.74. LeFevre was fifth in 10.991 seconds, a mere six-thousandths of a second ahead of Waynsfield-Goshen’s Tyler Eller. LeFevre and Eller had battled each other at every level in the state tournament.

“That was a pretty good run,” LeFevre said. That was my second-best run of all time … I have been going back and forth with Tyler Eller and I endged him out. That was a good fifth-place finish for me.”

Fort Recovery’s 4x100 relay team of Riley Pearson, Jacob Acheson, Brayden Schoen and LeFevre finished eighth for the second consecutive year. The quartet entered the meet seeded second, but was sitting sixth after Friday’s preliminaries at 43.86 seconds.

With perhaps a little hesitation on the handoffs because of an earlier mishap, the Indians weren’t able to improve on their preliminary time and finished eighth in 44.04 seconds. It was a far different position than what they were expecting.

“They wanted a lot more, but you know what? There’s a lot of people walking around today that don’t have a medal,” Moody said. “And there’s a ot of people who didn’t even make it here this weekend.

“Put that medal around your neck and put a smile on your face. Next year we’ll have bigger and better goals again and we’ll have to work hard for it.”

The 4x200 relay of Jared Timmerman, Pearson, Schoen and LeFevre also competed Saturday morning but was disqualified. The Tribe dropped the baton between the first two legs, and made the second exchange out of the designated area to get disqualified.

“It was a bad handoff right away,” said LeFevre, who coasted during his anchor leg since the team was already out of the running. “Nothing we could do. They know they messed up, there is no reason to harp on them or anything.

“It happens sometimes. It happened to us now.”

Fort Recovery’s boys, which competed in five events on the weekend and made the finals in four of them, totaled 10 points and finished in a five-way tie for 18th place out of 72 scoring teams. East Canton won the team championship with 64 points.

“Hopefully we’re starting to create some tradition,” Moody said. “Hopefully it made people excited and I want these boys to be proud of their accomplishments … no one has had this much success in getting to the state meet as we have this season.

“Not only these guys, because I know they will have a little fuiel in their belly for next year, but it will be contagious. It has got to be. The 4x4 relay that didn’t make it, they have goals not only to make it but to make it to finals next year.

“It will accumulate. It will grow. I’m sure it will.”