Building lineups

CELINA, Ohio — The Patriot boys are looking for someone to step up in their No. 5 spot. 

The girls are looking forward to having a full roster.

The pair of returning regional qualifiers led Jay County High School again Saturday in the Celina Rotary Invitational at Wright State University – Lake Campus as the teams continue to work to build the lineup behind them.

Joseph Boggs’ 17th-place finish topped the list for the Patriot boys, who scored 234 points to finish in front of Blackford with 265 and Elida (Ohio) with 315. New Haven was well in front of JCHS in eighth place with 181 points. Bryan (Ohio) won with 53 points by 43 over runner-up Eaton (Ohio).

Alexis Sibray was 24th for the Jay County’s girls, who did not have enough runners for a team score. Fort Loramie dominated the meet with 24 points as all of its seven scoring runners finished in the top 13.

“I was really glad the temperatures dropped from the week,” said JCHS coach Bruce Wood, referencing Thursday’s highs in the 90s. (Temperatures were in the 70s at race time Saturday.) “It was kind of a messy week of practice because of it. So I’m really kind of happy with the performance today based off of a weird week of practice, of modified practices, because of the heat.”

Both Boggs and Sibray established a spot early and were able to pick off a handful of runners over the course of the race.

For Boggs, that meant sitting in 22nd out of the field of 122 at the mile mark. He stayed there through the mid-point of the race before climbing to his finish in 18 minutes, 30.99 seconds.

Sibray ran a similar race for the Patriot girls, sitting in the low 30s early on before climbing to 28th midway through the race and 26th with a kilometer to go. She picked up two more spots down the stretch as she posted a time of 23:29.99.

After missing the first meet of the season last week at Taylor University while attending a funeral, freshman Caleb Garringer started his career in the No. 2 spot for the JCHS boys as he placed 39th in 19:45.37.

“I was super happy to get him in a race and see where he’s at,” said Wood. “He’s doing real well.”

Beckett Brandenburg, another freshman, was 57th in 20:45.48, and sophomore Max Klopfenstein finished 61st in 21:05.67. There was more than a two-minute gap to Jay County’s fifth runner, with Lukes Powers closing out the team score in 23:23.8. (Teammate Darren Fisher was two places back in 23:31.16.)

Sophomore Paityn Wendel followed Sibray for the Patriot girls in 40th place in 25:05.92. Courtney Harris had a time of 29:20.86 for JCHS, which was without Willow Hardy because of an illness and has a pair of exchange students who have yet to join the lineup.

William Hawbaker was the seventh runner for the Jay County boys, crossing the line in 25:56.84 for 111th.