Girls, Diller earn regional berths

CEDARVILLE, Ohio — The Indians are no strangers to postseason success.

With four straight state appearances, and four returning athletes from some of those trips, they knew what it would take to keep their season going.

The Fort Recovery High School girls cross country team claimed the final regional berth after finishing seventh in the OHSAA Division III Southwest District meet at Cedarville University, while the boys fell to 17th.

In the new district, two races are combined into one, with the top seven teams advancing. The Indians sat comfortably in seventh place with 178 points, beating Anna (262) for the final regional spot. The boys tallied 469 points, falling 274 short of Legacy Christian for the final spot. While the boys won’t move on as a team, Reese Diller’s 27th-place finish in 17 minutes, 23.02 seconds earned him an individual regional berth.

Joelle Kaup paced the girls with a time of 20:45.97 to claim 19th. Ten spots behind her, freshman Riley Heitkamp crossed the finish line in 21:01.15.

Other scores for the girls came from Makenna Huelskamp (40th - 21:45.80), Anna Roessner (44th - 21:58.04) and Maddie Heitkamp (55th - 22:27.87).

Following Diller for the boys was Evan Evers with a 19:37.14 to claim 104th.

Other scores for the boys came from Russell Hart (19:58.68 - 116th), Evan Diller (20:28.55 - 126th) and Henry Jutte (21:05.61 - 138th).

Tribe breezes

ARCANUM, Ohio — The third-seeded Fort Recovery volleyball team rolled to a 25-8, 25-13, 25-10 victory over No. 7 seed Twin Valley South in the OHSAA Division VI Southwest 2 sectional championship on Saturday.

With the victory, the Indians (11-13) move on to play host top-seed Arcanum in the district opener at 5 p.m. on Wednesday. (During the regular season, Arcanum beat Fort Recovery in five sets.)

Kayla Heitkamp controlled the offense, dishing out 32 assists in the victory. She also added three kills, two aces and a block to help the offensive effort.

Cameron Muhlenkamp led the Tribe in kills with 11. Karlie Niekamp followed closely behind with 10.

The Indians dominated the Panthers at the net, as four players recorded two or more blocks. Brynn Willmann had the most at five rejections, while Kennedy Muhlenkamp added three and Cameron Muhlenkamp and Niekamp each contributed two.