Records rewritten

PIQUA, Ohio — There were two races in the individual girls sprint events Saturday.

One featured the fastest Patriots, Jets, Panthers, Tigers, Pirates and others.

In the other, Anna Roessner had just two opponents — herself and the record book.

The Fort Recovery High School senior won three championships during the Division III girls track district at Piqua, setting meet records in all of them to lead the Indian girls to a fifth-place finish among 19 scoring teams.

“Honestly, I’m just super thankful,” said Roessner moments after her 200-meter dash win. “Very, very thankful. I kind of just went into today with no expectations, kind of just having the mentality of just having fun and seeing what came out with it. It’s a beautiful day, so I’m just very thankful.”

Joining her at the regional meet — it is being contested tonight and Friday at Troy — will be her brother Isaac, Karlie Niekamp and Carson Fullenkamp. (The top four athletes in each event earned regional berths.)

Roessner’s effort accounted for most of the points for the Tribe girls to finish behind champion Fort Loramie (162), Versailles (110), Ansonia (68) and Russia (46).

“She did not need to do any of that today,” said FRHS coach Christy Diller. “But she sets very high standards for herself. She wants to get records.

“She’s very capable, but even us, we watch her, we’re just like, ‘Wow, what did she just do?’ It’s pretty fun.”

Fort Recovery's boys tallied 24 points for 13th out of 17 scoring squads. Ansonia won the title with 108.

As it turned out, even the district record book was no match for Anna Roessner.

She set the tone in her first race of the day, crossing the finish line nearly 10 meters ahead of everyone else as she won in 11.96 seconds. She was more than a second faster than runner-up Adalynn Hines (12.98) of Tri-Village while no one else broke the 13-second mark.

    Carson Fullenkamp gets fully extended during one of his attempts in the finals of the shot put during Saturday’s district meet at Piqua. He came up big on his final throw, matching Paul Hickey of Dixie at 45 feet, 9 1/2 inches. He took fourth place on the tiebreaker to earn the final regional berth in the event. (The Commercial Review/Ray Cooney)

It was more of the same in the other two sprints, as Roessner made up the stagger on before leaving the first curve of the 400 dash and spent the rest of the race running away from the field. She posted her biggest win of the day proportionally, beating Newton Local’s Cole Thompson by 4.22 seconds. She finished in 56.41 seconds as the only athlete in the race to break the 1-minute mark.

She erased the stagger on the curve again in the 200 dash, winning by 1.65 seconds over runner-up Taylor Schmitmeyer of Fort Loramie in 24.18. (She broke her own school record of 24.34.)

All of her times were district records as she easily obliterated more than decade-old marks of 12.35 in the 100 dash and 25.44 in the 200 dash, both of which were previously held by Gretchen Walter of Lehman Catholic. The previous 400 dash record was set in 2018 at 56.93 by Covington’s Rayna Horner.

Roessner set the new records by 0.39 seconds, 1.26 seconds and 0.52 seconds, respectively, despite having no one at her heels.

“It’s a huge mental game,” she said. “Just with track in general it’s super mental. I always just envision someone right behind me, pushing me along. I really don’t know where anybody is behind me. They could be a step. They could be 10 feet.”

Isaac Roessner, Anna’s sophomore brother, provided the surprise of the day for the Indians as he ran a career-best time to earn a regional berth as well.

Seeded eighth in the 300 hurdles following Tuesday’s preliminaries, he said he saw opportunity when No. 4 seed Aaron Bruner of Tri-Village and No. 6 seed Colt Barnes of Tri-County North did not come to the start line for the finals.

The regional swung open even more when No. 2 seed Day’Lynn Garrett of Covington fell while going over a hurdle on the curve. Garrett may have been able to get back into the top four but clipped every hurdle the rest of the way. Roessner said he didn’t know for sure where he stood coming down the stretch, but just focused on trying to hold his position.

He finished in 41.88 seconds, nearly two seconds faster than his preliminary time from  just four days earlier.

“My first hurdle wasn’t very good, but my second, third and fourth, I was feeling good,” said Roessner, who was also the district runner-up in the long jump on Tuesday at 19 feet, 11 3/4 inches. “So, I was like, all right, I have a real opportunity here. So I just wanted to go capture it.”

The Indians’ other regional berths Saturday came in the throwing events, where Karlie Niekamp finished fourth in the girls discus and Carson Fullenkamp was fourth in the boys shot put.

Niekamp was in danger of not even making the top nine to advance to Saturday’s finals as her first toss came in under 100 feet and her second was a foul. But she found her groove on throw No. 3, sending it 117 feet, 4 inches, to move her from 10th to second. 

“I’ve done it before,” said Niekamp. “I do it every day in practice. So it was really hit my marks and stay smooth in the ring and trusting myself that I can do that.”

That toss stood through the finals as her best of the day for fourth place just 2 inches behind Alexis Moody of Ansonia and 3 inches behind Madison Snider of Fort Loramie. Arcanum’s Faith Wooten won solidly at 125 feet, 6 inches.

Fullenkamp had no issue reaching the finals as his first toss of 45 feet, 6 inches, safely put him amongst the best in the field but was in danger of not advancing to the regional as he sat fifth heading into his final attempt. He did just enough, matching the 45 feet, 9 1/2 inches, from Paul Hickey of Dixie and claiming the final regional spot thanks to the tiebreaker.

“Carson Fullenkamp pulling out a fourth-place finish, we thought he could do that but we knew it was going to be really tight,” said Diller. “So that was really cool.”

The junior broke through to the regional after coming up one spot short with a fifth-place finish in the discus on Tuesday.

Madison Heitkamp narrowly missed a regional berth in the 100 hurdles, finishing fifth as Dixie’s Maddison Caldwell edged her at the finish line.