Distance dominance

The Indians wasted no time proving their distance dominance.

In Tuesday’s season opener, the Fort Recovery High School girls track team won every individual race 400 meters or longer while Trevor Heitkamp obliterated the field in the two longest boys races.

That distance strength carried the Tribe girls to a tie with 2022 Midwest Athletic Conference runner-up Coldwater at 88 points in the four-team meet that also included MAC rival Marion Local (62) and Union City (0).

Heitkamp’s scoring was about all the boys team could muster as it finished with 22 points to trail Marion Local (121.5), Coldwater (68.5) and Union City (26).

The Indians were dominant from the start in the distance events as Ellie Will rolled out to an early lead in the meet-opening 4x800-meter relay. She had about a 15-meter advantage over Coldwater’s MacKenzie Hammons after the opening lap and just continued to open her lead until handing off to sophomore teammate Joelle Kaup. The advantage just kept getting wider as Megan Diller and Natalie Brunswick joined Will and Kaup for a winning time of 10 minutes, 41.5 seconds, topping the runner-up Cavaliers by nearly two minutes.

“I just tried to go out as fast as I could. I haven’t ran it since last year so I just wanted to see what I could do the first meet,” Will said. “I think our 4x800 did really well today so I’m really excited to see where that will go.”

Heitkamp was able to place first in both the 1,600 run and 3,200 run with times of 4:36:39 and 9:55:5, respectively. In the latter event, Heitkamp jumped out to a 10-meter lead almost immediately and was up by about 100 meters with three laps still remaining.

Both times were the second-best of his career.

“I think the mindset going in — at least for the 2-mile — I was strongly confident. I had a race plan and I executed it,” Heitkamp said. “I trained a lot over the winter and that set me up for a lot of good success. It feels very good.”

In the girls 1,600 run, the Indians took the top three spots. Will once again led the way with a time of 5:53:09. Jenna Hart was fighting for second place during most of the race, and pulled away in the third lap, while Brynn Stammen was able to barely eke out third in the final 50 yards as she passed Marion Local’s Josie Bruns.

Natalie Brunswick showed herself to be within striking distance of the school record for the 3,200 run, coming up just 10 seconds short with a time of 12:04:10. Hart finished with a time of 13:02:44 to give the Tribe a one-two finish.

In the 800 run, the Indians had first- and second-place finishes here with Megan Diller clocking in at 2:43 flat and Kaup at 2:50:14.

“Almost all of them come from cross country in the fall. So they had a really good season in the fall and that carries over to now,” coach Christy Diller. (FRHS finished 13th at the OHSAA Division II Girls Cross Country State Finals in November, with Natalie Brunswick placing 33rd individually while Heitkamp was 35th in the boys race. “They’re feeling confident, they’ve been running well at practice. That makes me very excited for the year and hopefully it’s a sign of good things to come.”

Anna Roessner was another highlight for the girls team as the sophomore won the 400 dash in 1:05.84 and was second in both the 100 dash and 200 dash.

Mara Pearson started strong in the long jump after her state-medalist effort in 2022, winning by nearly 2 feet at 17 feet, 2 inches. She was also third behind Roessner in the 200 dash, and in her first time competing in the hurdles she placed third in both the 100 and 300. Kiana Matsuda was the runner-up in the 300 hurdles.

Izzy Zahn starred for the Coldwater girls in the battle of MAC rivals, winning the 100 dash and 200 dash.

Parker Brunswick was the only individual other than Heitkamp to score in a track event for the Fort Recovery boys. He finished fourth in the 1,600 run and third in the 800 run. Connor Kaikala was fourth in the long jump.

Nate Buschur powered the Marion Local boys to their victory as he finished first in the 100 dash, 200 dash and pole vault.

The FRHS boys were without Lucas Acheson, who was sidelined after suffering an ankle injury earlier in the day.

“He is a key component of all of our sprint relays so we were scrambling a bit to try and move people around,” coach Diller said. “We’ll see. I don’t know what to think about that yet.”

Overall, the goal for the Indians was to set a benchmark for themselves and get times in to learn what events to place each individual in.

“It was good to get a meet in now we can sit down and see where we are going to put people to optimize stuff for them and for us,” coach Diller said. “In terms of that, we hit our goals.”