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November 11, 2004
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November 11, 2004 |
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YSHS harriers place 5th at states
After a grueling two weeks in which they won district and regional titles, the YSHS boys cross country team had another stellar performance against the best runners in Ohio, placing 5th, out of 16 teams, in the Division III state championship race at Scioto Downs in Columbus on Saturday. McDonald finished first with 92, followed by Middlefield Cardinal with 127, West Lafayette Ridgewood with 149 and Lima Catholic Central with 151 points. The Bulldogs had 158 points. In a sea of 155 athletes, sophomore Sam Borchers, the Bulldogs’ top runner, came in eighth in 16:40. He was on the heels of first-place finisher, North Lima senior Dan Nemergut, who finished the course in 16:13. It was a long day for the Division III boys teams, which were the first to run in the state’s six competitions, but had to wait an agonizing five hours, because of technical errors, to get results of the race. It took officials most of the day to identify the runners at the finish line, and when they got the final scores, the Bulldogs, hoping for first or second place hardware, had mixed feelings. “McDonald got us. I thought we could take them,” coach Vince Peters said. “Still, it was our third tough week in a row, and fifth in the state is not bad.” “It wasn’t our day,” freshman Andy Peters said after the race. “I was sprinting at the end as fast as these legs could go, but McDonald had a great pack right in front of me, and I couldn’t get them at the end.” The last time a cross country team from YSHS qualified for the state championship race was in 1984, when the Bulldogs finished in 11th place. “I think we did well as a team. We gave it our all and that’s all we can do,” senior Jeremy Upton said. “There’s no disappointments, I think.” Running over a mildly hilly 3.1-mile course on a sunny day, the Bulldogs started easy and tried to move ahead of other runners during the race. But Borchers stayed with the lead pack, running the first mile in 16th place, and moved up to eighth by the finish. Peters and senior David Warren stuck together around 60th place at the mile and moved up steadily toward the finish, where Peters crossed the line in 52nd place in 17:26 and Warren placed 60th in 17:31. Upton, who also had to play in the boys soccer regional finals Saturday night, ran the best race of his life, finishing 79th in 17:48. Carey Dixon, running through an unspecified injury he sustained a week earlier in the regional finals, finished 106th in 18:26. The Bulldogs’ sixth and seventh runners, Andy Sontag and Matt Halm, finished 140th and 154th, respectively. The team spent a lot of energy getting to states. Warren had a clue of the team’s potential when the Bulldogs started the season in August with an unusual twice-a-day practice schedule. “I feel good, and I’m happy to be here,” he said. “It shows that we are one of the best in the state, that we reached our goal.”
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