Tribe punches two tickets to regional

SPENCERVILLE, Ohio — The Indians have punched regional tickets in two events.

They earned seeds that indicate they can follow suit in four more events.

They made their way to the finals to give them a chance in another two events.

Two more performances failed to reach the regional level, but scored some points for the Tribe.

The Fort Recovery High School track team’s Karlie Neikamp and the girls 4x800-meter relay both earned a berth for the regional competition after placing in the top four at the Division III district tournament preliminary hosted by Spencerville on Wednesday.

After the first day of competition, the girls team sits in fifth place out of 11 teams with 13 points. The boys team secured six points, which is good for eighth place out of 12 teams after the prelims. Minster leads both sides with 34 points for the boys and 25.66 earned by the girls.

Neikamp earned her first regional berth as a junior in the discus with a mark of 112 feet, 6 inches to take second place. New Knoxville’s Avery Albers took the district crown with a throw that beat Neikamp by 6 feet, 4 inches.

The girls 4x800 relay team secured the other regional berth on Wednesday. In the district race, Ellie Will, Kennedy Muhlenkamp, Joelle Kaup and  Natalie Brunswick paced fourth with a time of 10 minutes, 13.02 seconds to edge out New Bremen for the last spot by 6.04 seconds.

The Indians secured eight qualifications for the finals which will take place later today. Five of those eight seeds are in the top four and favored to make it through to the regional.

Anna Roessner took the top spot in both the 100 dash and 200 dash with times of 12.14 seconds and 24.83 seconds. Mara Pearson qualified in both events as well, finishing third in the 100 dash (12.73) and fifth in the 200 dash (27.11).

Aubrey Young of Allen East sits as the first seed out of the 100 dash with a time of 12.93, white she edges Pearson out of the final spot in the 200 dash by 0.004 seconds.

Another preliminary first-place finish came from the girls 4x100 relay team. Roessner, Paige Guggenbiller, Kiana Matsuda and Pearson combined for a 50.19 time. 

The other favorable seed belongs to the 4x400 relay team. Matsuda, Will, Guggenbiller and Roessner ran a 4:17.68 race to claim the fourth seed. New Knoxville’s team sits just below Fort Recovery with a time of 4:23.2.

Like Pearson in the 200 dash, Matsuda sits just outside of the favorites to make the regional in the 300 hurdles. Her time of 47.8 seconds earned fifth place, while Karlee Buschur of St. Henry beat her out by 0.39 seconds.

The boys 4x400 relay team also earned a finals berth after Breaker Jutte, Isaac Roessner, Ben Ingold and Trevor Heitkamp claimed the sixth-best time of 3:46.99. New Bremen holds the No. 4 seed at 3:36.92.

The boys team has already earned points from the 4x800 relay team and Carson Fullenkamp.

Heitkamp, Reese Diller, Russell Hart and Parker Bruswick combined for the relay and took sixth place in 9:03.86. They would have needed to be 22.59 faster to beat Marion Local for the final regional spot.

Fullenkamp’s throw of 45 feet, 0.5 inches, captured sixth place in the shot put. Allen East’s Landen Poling earned the final regional berth with a throw of 49 feet, 9 inches.