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New-look fairgrounds muddy but favorable to runners
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Ashley Lydic of Columbiana and McKinsie Klim of Poland cross the fi nish line on top Tuesday afternoon in Canfi eld. Lydic placed first overall, while Klim’s Bulldogs were the top overall girls team.
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Ryan Roush of South Range finishes first Tuesday afternoon in Canfield. He crossed the finish line with a time of 16:10. Mark Hadley of Boardman placed second and Roush’s Raider teammate, Tim Nichols was third.
CANFIELD
The mud at the Canfield Fairgrounds was thick and fresh thanks in part to Monday evening’s rainfall. Ashley Lydic nearly lost her shoe.
“I just had to press and run out of it to get control of my shoe back,” the senior from Columbiana said. At that point, it was the last thing on her mind. Lydic blazed through the conditions and took the girl’s top-spot with a time of 20 minutes, 6 seconds at Tuesday’s Suburban League cross country meet.
Poland was the top overall girls team with 35 points and McDonald’s boys won with 47.
“The course doesn’t matter if its hilly, flat, muddy, wet, dry, sunny, rainy,” Lydic’s coach, Greg Kippler said. “The runners have to come out and race.”
The Fairgrounds course is notorious for changing up the field, year after year. Even with the mud, Lydic said it was better this year than in years past.
“I really liked the set up of the course,” she said. “Last year, I did horrible here. They did a really good job this year. There were no hills and it ran fast. I liked it.”
Her time was the best she’s had all year. Kippler attributed it to the extended work she put in during the summer. On her own accord, Lydic ran some of the area courses to scope out the scene.
“She put in the extra mileage and when you get that in there, all the miles seem to go easier,” he said. “She’s always had that potential. It’s been her trying to find it and combine it with the drive to put in an awesome race which were starting to see now.” Kippler and Lydic both feel that she is peeking at the right time. Lydic has a goal of breaking the 20 minute mark before the season is over. “The rest of the season will be exciting,” she said.
Kippler coached Columbiana’s track team for the past several years and helped usher Lydic and her 4x800-meter relay team to a pair of regional appearances. In his first season coaching cross country for the Clippers, he likes seeing his team’s progression, as well as scouting fellow runners from the Inter-Tri County League.
Ryan Roush is one of those ITCL standouts. After falling by one-tenth of a second in Saturday’s Spartan Invitational, he came back with a 16:10, beating the next runner, Boardman’s Mark Hadley, by 16 seconds.
“I tried to forget about [Saturday],” Roush said. “I just try to worry about one meet at a time. But, I got some confidence back today.”
The senior averaged a mile time of 5:12 and stayed solid the whole meet. Hadley and Tim Nichols, a fellow Raider lagged behind him for most of the race, but Roush always knew they were there.
“It was different than the Spartan Invitational, but anything can happen,” he said.”I knew they were there pushing on me.”
He also said that this year’s course was completely different than last year’s and it played to his advantage.
“This was pretty flat,” Roush said.
It was unique, too. “It felt like we were just spinning in circles the whole time.”
Hadley’s Spartans came in second as a team scoring 71 points. Maplewood was third with 102.
Canfield girls were behind Poland with 102 points and Howland scored 107 points for third place.