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McDonald runners advance
By Jon Moffett
Boardman
South Range’s Tim Nichols had a hard time sleeping Friday night.
In between his tossing and turning, he kept having the same nightmare: crossing the finish line in 17th place. The trick? Only the top 16 runners advance to the state cross country meet.
But Nichols received his treat Saturday as he was one of the Division III qualifiers in the regional cross country championship meet at Boardman High.
He and teammate Ryan Roush will represent the school at the state meet next weekend.
“I woke up at like 6:30 this morning, completely nervous and came here not thinking I’d make it,” Nichol said. “I kept having dreams I’d miss the cut by one spot.”
Roush finished in fourth place in Div. III, and Nichols finished in seventh. Roush’s time was 16:11.89 for the 5k run. Nichols finished with a time of 16:23.62.
Roush, who led the race for a while, said he was satisfied with his performance but hopes to do even better next week.
“I wanted to run a race that I would be proud of and my teammates would be proud of,” Roush said. “[To prepare] I’m just going to cut down my mileage back a little bit, but keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
Three other individual runners also qualified for the state meet in Div. III.
Joining Nichols and Roush with top 16-times were Patrick Kunkel and Kyle Jones of McDonald and Wyatt Hartman of Maplewood. Kunkel finished in ninth place, Jones placed 14th and Hartman finished in 12th.
Kunkel and Jones will be joined by all their teammates, girls and boys.
Both McDonald teams qualified for the state meet in Columbus. The boys captured second place overall, and the girls finished third.
“There were some real tough teams in this region,” McDonald boys coach Chris Rupe said. “We’ve been ranked well all year, but if things didn’t go our way today we weren’t going to make it. So we needed to have a good race. Those seven guys on the course came through.
“My hat’s off to them. That’s a good result. We’re excited about qualifying, for sure.”
Maybe the most dramatic moment was the unveiling of the four girls teams that would make the trip to Columbus. Hundreds of girls huddled around a leader board that would reveal — or in some cases confirm — who was headed to state and who was headed home.
The McDonald girls team, consisting of Abby D’Amore, Bailey D’Amore, Paige Eckman, Taylor Garland, Sarah Jones, Katie Joseph and Kenzie Srock, finished with 113 points. Fourth-place Maplewood had 114 points. Berkshire, which was left out of the team qualifying in fifth place, had 115 points.
Alana Shamrock and Krystal Williams of Maplewood — who finished fourth and fifth, respectively — knew they would be going to Columbus. But it was a pleasant surprise to see they would be joined by the rest of their teammates.
“We knew we were in it for each other, and we told each other that we were going to race together and be confident in what we were doing,” Williams said. “We knew we weren’t going to give up on each other, and that was going to get us through it.”
Mcdonald girls coach Mike Richards was overcome by emotions — a rarity, he said — after he found out his team had punched its ticket to the state meet.
“I don’t even know what to say; I don’t ever get this emotional,” he said. “In fact, the girls make fun of me because I never cry when I’m happy. But, this group of girls is just special to me. I don’t know what else to say. It’s just an awesome group of girls.”
Joining the McDonald and Maplewood girls in Div. III were Emily Rast of South Range, Ashley Lydic of Columbiana and Hannah Gerdes of Ursuline.
The lone local representative in Div. II was Drake Lohnes of West Branch, who finished tenth.
Lohnes, a sophomore, was focused, despite qualifying for the state meet for the first time. He said he was so full of adrenaline he couldn’t even focus yet.
“I’ve still got another week before I start to celebrate,” he said. “But I’m really happy I made it to state. That was my goal, and I feel really good about it.”
There were no representatives for Div. I. Katie Heney, of Boardman, finished the highest among local runners in the division. She finished in 29th place.