Tribe runners finish second

COLUMBUS GROVE, Ohio — Running on Saturday wasn’t a guarantee for Trevor Heitkamp.

On Oct. 14, Heitkamp collapsed during the Midwest Athletic Conference cross country meet and in turn was taken to the emergency room.

After nine hours in the ER, multiple tests and a doctor's appointment Oct. 16, it was determined that Heitkamp had suffered from lactic acidosis which is when lactic acid builds up in the bloodstream because cells aren’t getting enough oxygen during anaerobic exercise.

Heitkamp was cleared to run, but wore a heart monitor as a precaution.

The result? He finished second.

Heitkamp made it out of the OHSAA Division III district cross country meet at Columbus Grove Saturday while the Fort Recovery High School girls cross country team tallied 78 points to place second in the district meet to advance to the regional in Tiffin.

Joining the Indians will be Minster (19), Parkway (83) and St. John’s (144) as the top four teams and 16 individuals advance to Tiffin. 

The top three teams and top 12 individuals earn spots in the regional for the boys. They boys team had 131 points landing them fourth place and just short of a berth. Lincolnview (31), Minster (54) and Crestview (78) were the three teams to punch their tickets.

“It was a very solid day all around,” Fort Recovery coach Christy Diller said. “We got done what we came to do.”

Last season, Heitkamp won the district meet with a time of 16 minutes, 16 seconds. Armed with the knowledge that he can succeed at this level and the fall from the MAC meet, Heitkamp decided to take things easy.

Even so, he established himself early, sitting third behind Lincolnview’s Conner Baldauf and Minster’s Ryan Halpin. At the 2-mile mark, he pulled ahead of Haplin and held second place the rest of the way, crossing the finish line at 16:22.89.

Baldauf held a 20-meter lead as they got to the track inside Columbus Grove’s football stadium for the final stretch and won the race with a 16:14.11.

“I thought it went perfectly,” Heitkamp said. “I did exactly what I wanted to do. … 

“So the goal today was just to qualify. When you're in the tournament, you just want to move on no matter what it takes. So in order to do that, I needed to make sure I was feeling good. … Halfway through the race, I just remember thinking like, ‘This is an easy run.’”

Natalie Brunswick paced the girls, finishing fourth with a 19:22.08.

Brunswick led the race most of the way, in front of a pack of Minster Wildcats. About 2.5 miles into the race, Chaney Cedarleaf, Margaret Hemmelgarn and Maria Niekamp flanked Brunswick from both sides before passing and pinching her off. The trio formed a shield to stop Brunswick from overtaking them for the final stretch of the race.

Cedarleaf and Hemmelgarn both finished at 19:16.63 while Niekamp was only 0.03 seconds behind.

“The whole race I felt very comfortable,” Brunswick said. “Obviously Minster has a strong leading pack and I knew they were going to come up at some point. Halfway through the last mile, they all just built a wall right in front of me. So, I had nothing else to do but to just continue to run my race, and that's exactly what I did.”

Beyond Brunswick, the girls had two more athletes, Ellie Will and Joelle Kaup, that would have qualified for regional as individuals. Will jumped out to 10th place, holding the position until slipping to 12th in the final half mile. Her final time was 20:43.6.

Kaup was floating around the No. 17 mark for the entire race. At the same time Brunswick and Will started to fall back, Kaup caught her stride.

She worked her way to 16th with a half a mile left. She really caught wind with 100 meters left in the race, overtaking Ava Stammen of Minster and Ariyah Pfenning of New Knoxville to finish 13th right behind Will with a time of 20:44.48 to set a new career best.

“Kids just stepped up and went above and beyond,” Diller said. “She took 40 seconds off her lifetime best last week. She dropped another couple seconds this week. She is running confident right now, that's what we need.”

The final two finishes for the girls came from Anna Roessner (23rd – 21:36.07) and Jenna Hart (28th – 21:57.08).

Parker Brunswick finished one spot away from a regional berth in the boys race. The sophomore held 13th place the entire way, finishing at 17:45.97, 22.91 seconds shy of 12th.

“He ran a great time today,” Diller said. “He ran a great race, it’s just this venue and the way these races are set up it just gets so spread out so it's really hard to try to push when you're that far off of somebody.”

Other finishes for the boys came from Reese Diller (20th - 18:15.11), Evan Evers (47th - 19:47.95) and Russell Hart (54th - 20:50.04).

Also competing for the Indians were Madison Heitkamp (33rd), Nicole Braun (43rd), Milo Fiely (55th) and Aiden Heitkamp (68th).