Ready to run

In 2018, the Indians were one spot away from making the state meet.

Hanna Metzger, then a sophomore, watched as her teammate, Chloe Will, qualified as an individual for the second consecutive season.

Two years later, Metzger gets her chance to run at state with a little help from Will’s younger sister, Ellie.

“It’s very exciting,” said Metzger, a Fort Recovery High School senior, who along with her Tribe cross country teammates will compete in the OHSAA Division III state championship meet at 10 a.m. Saturday at Fortress Obetz in Obetz, Ohio.

“It feels very rewarding,” Metzger continued. “I’ve run through each year of cross country so it’s very exciting we actually made it my senior year.”

Although Metzger isn’t necessarily the team’s top runner, she is one of two seniors and a captain on the team. Her role, she said, is to push the youngsters into running consistently.

“I would say I helped influence them to do summer running,” she said. “A few of us girls went to a running camp throughout the summer. I tried to influence them or persuade them to run more throughout the whole year instead of just when we’re in season.”

FRHS coach Christy Diller said reaching this point in the season has been the squad’s driving force all season long.

“They set the goal at the beginning of the year to make it to state,” said Diller, whose squad was third in the Tiffin regional Saturday to make state for the first time since 1999. “We told them that was totally doable and legitimate. Now, if you would have asked me at the beginning of the season if they would have gotten third at regional I would have laughed.

“I don’t say that to sound like I’m not believing in them, they just stepped up.”

Perhaps no one has stepped up more than freshman Ellie Will, Chloe’s younger sister. Ellie was the team’s top runner at regional, during which she finished 12th overall in 19 minutes, 38.3 seconds. Although her time was eight seconds slower than her career best, it was more than four minutes faster than her first high school meet back on Aug. 25. At that race, the Mercer County Meet, she was third on the team behind seniors Anna Wendel and Metzger.

Will and fellow freshmen Jenna Hart and Brynn Stammen have worked their way to become the team’s best runners, and sophomore Megan Diller — the coach’s daughter — gives the Indians a strong young core.

“As a freshman you don’t know what you can do,” Christy Diller said. “I think that was pretty noticeable the first three, four meets. But man, when (Will) figured it out … she knew what she wanted. She’s confident and I feel that is super unusual for a freshman.

“Our other two freshmen (Hart and Stammen), they are just fearless. They are not afraid to go out and kill it. That spreads throughout the rest of the team. The other girls see that.”

Prior to the regional meet Saturday at Tiffin, Fort Recovery was ranked 11th in its division by the Ohio Association of Track and Cross Country Coaches. Heading into the state championships, the Indians have climbed four spots to seventh.

West Liberty Salem is the top-ranked team, with Liberty Center second. Minster, which is the four-time defending state champion and was the runner-up to Liberty Center at the Tiffin regional, is third.

Diller is hoping her squad, which also includes sophomore Alexis Wendel, can finish where it is ranked or elsewhere in the top 10. Fort Recovery placed 14th in 1998, and improved two spots the following year. (Diller’s sister, Pam Roessner, was a junior on the 1999 squad.)

“A, I want them to have fun, but B, we just need to go and take care of business,” she said. “If we go take care of business I think we should be able to be top 10.

“I think that would be an awesome goal for them for their first year.”

Will, however, has other goals in mind. Her sister holds the school record of 19:24, and she’d like to best that time.

“Hopefully I can beat her record,” Ellie said. Chloe Will placed 37th at state as a senior, an improvement of 80 spots from the previous year. “I have to drop six seconds to get under her record then I’ll be No. 1 in the school’s record books.”

Asked what it’ll take to be satisfied Saturday, Metzger was candid in her response.

“Honestly I’m satisfied already,” she said. “I’m just glad that we made it this far. I’d just be satisfied to finish the race as a team, as a group. They’re like family.”

Said Will: “Just that we go out there and we race as well as we can and when we’re done we’re happy with how we did.”