Wallace wins as two points separate the IVC girls’ top three
A point separated first from second. Another point separated second from third. Tuscarawas Valley, Claymont and Indian Valley produced a three-team finish decided by just two points in the Inter-Valley Conference girls championship Saturday, October 17, at Sandy Valley.
Tuscarawas Valley won with 47 points, Claymont followed with 48 and Indian Valley finished with 49. Claymont senior Kali Wallace won the 61-runner 5K in 19:05.02, finishing 53.21 seconds ahead of Indian Valley’s Bridget Pittis. Wallace supplied the first point, but the championship stayed close through the rest of the scoring lineups.
At Crooksville, Meadowbrook’s Vinny Campbell and John Glenn’s Ashlynn Kuklica won the Muskingum Valley League individual races. Their teams also found themselves in close company: Meadowbrook’s boys finished two points ahead of Morgan for second, and John Glenn’s girls won a sixth-runner tiebreak over Meadowbrook after both scored 93.
Those league finishes set up the next high-school test. Cambridge hosts district racing October 24, with regional places at Pickerington North at stake.
Three teams, three different routes to the front
Tuscarawas Valley’s girls took third through sixth at the IVC meet. Natalie Rennicker, Natalie Stokes, Brooklynn Sponaugle and Hayden Huffman finished within 10.32 seconds of one another, giving the Trojans four runners home before Claymont’s second scorer.
Wallace led four Mustangs among the first eleven. Freshmen Corabell Morris and Riley Roach finished seventh and eighth, and Emma McPherson followed in eleventh. Heidi Johnson completed Claymont’s scoring in twenty-second overall, worth 21 team points. Roach’s 20:44.38 and McPherson’s 21:14.19 were season bests.
Indian Valley put all five scorers among the first fifteen. Pittis broke twenty minutes with a season-best 19:58.23, followed by Rowan Harshey in ninth, Bailey Herbert tenth, Jillian Welch thirteenth and Blaire Harshey fifteenth. Only 1:38.89 separated Pittis and the Braves’ fifth finisher. Herbert and Welch also lowered their season bests.
Garaway’s Lydia Raber ran a season-best 22:18.33 for nineteenth. Newcomerstown’s Solee Garland followed in twenty-first at 22:24.94, and Buckeye Trail’s Kloie Eagon was twenty-third in a season-best 22:30.22. Those three become especially relevant to the Division IV individual race next Saturday, where advancing teams will help determine which other runners earn regional places.
Newcomerstown’s girls finished seventh with 163 points. Trail fielded five finishers and placed eighth with 189. Lily Bonnell, Kaedence Long, Brayleigh Hickman and Kami Porter completed Trail’s lineup. Hickman’s 28:39.02 was a season best; her faster career best remains in the school roster’s history.
Campbell and Kuklica lead the MVL races
Campbell won the 69-runner MVL boys race in 16:27.1, beating Sheridan’s Hudson Wilson by 12.3 seconds. Luke Norman placed third in 17:36.8, giving Meadowbrook two of the first three finishers.
Sheridan won the team championship with 40 points. Meadowbrook scored 61 to Morgan’s 63, with Grady Forbes, Gavin Koscoe and Camdon Rogers completing the Colts’ first five. Rogers ran a season-best 19:28.4. The two-point margin made each scorer’s place count behind Campbell and Norman.
John Glenn finished fifth with 128, between River View’s 127 and Tri-Valley’s 129. Kaid Ritchey led the Muskies in fifteenth with a season-best 18:57.4. Alexander Applegarth and Nicholas Yarrington finished just six-tenths of a second apart in 19:25.4 and 19:26.0, both season bests.
Kuklica won the 65-runner girls race in 19:28.0, finishing 20.1 seconds ahead of Tri-Valley’s Erin Hogue. Sheridan won the team title with 38, followed by Tri-Valley at 76. John Glenn and Meadowbrook each scored 93, leaving their sixth finishers to settle third place. John Glenn’s Lily Tharp finished ahead of Lainey Haught to give the Muskies the edge.
Meadowbrook’s Raegan Daugherty finished eighth in 21:52.2, only 1.5 seconds ahead of John Glenn’s Adelyn Kent. Neither needed a season best to make that a useful shared-race comparison a week before districts.
Patacca is second; Claymont finishes one point from second
Indian Valley’s Nolan Patacca placed second in the IVC boys race in 17:11.86, behind Sandy Valley’s Gleason Pfeffer at 16:50.15. Claymont freshman Kason Bazzoli finished seventh in 17:45.87, Indian Valley’s Mason Curran ninth in 18:09.58 and Garaway’s Dominic Schlabach eleventh in 18:23.22.
Tuscarawas Valley won with 35 points. East Canton edged Claymont 74–75 for second, followed by Sandy Valley at 87, Indian Valley at 132, Malvern at 144 and Newcomerstown at 161. Bryson Eckelberry led the Trojans in twenty-first at 19:09.07.
Trail’s Carter Johnson ran a season-best 19:02.39 for nineteenth. John Long also lowered his season best to 19:45.59, while Trent Jeane finished in 21:07.45 and Will Hickman in 33:35.87. Their district route will be through the Division IV individual race unless the team has five eligible finishers.
Middle-school finishes keep the team races close
Indian Valley’s TJ Linerode won the IVC boys’ 3,200-meter race in 11:47.06, 6.62 seconds ahead of Claymont’s Kevin Rodriguez. Indian Valley’s Todd Fillman was third in 11:58.86 and Trail’s Emmett Taylor fourth in 11:59.48. Fillman and Taylor were separated by just 0.62 seconds.
Indian Valley and East Canton each scored 41. East Canton won the sixth-runner tiebreak, with Braxton Campbell finishing fifteenth overall ahead of the Braves’ Aidan McMillen in twenty-fifth. Claymont finished third with 67 and Garaway fourth with 87.
In the IVC girls race, Claymont’s Maelee Salsberry placed second in 13:58.51 and Garaway’s Bristol Angel third in 14:07.58. Malvern’s Charlee Schreffler won in 12:50.36 and led her team to a 25–31 victory over East Canton. Claymont’s Harleigh Carpenter finished fifth with a season-best 15:14.21, Garaway’s Malia Miller sixth and Trail’s Kaylie Shull ninth.
East Muskingum finished second in both MVL middle-school races. Morgan beat the boys 52–58 and the girls 42–44. Miles Burga and Cam Thompson finished fifth and sixth among the boys, while Olivia Townsend, Chloe Wilkinson, Becca Bradley and Nora Burdette put four girls among the first ten. Their first four finished within 11.5 seconds of one another.
Bendo is second; Barnesville and Cambridge find close company
Union Local’s Connor Bendo finished second among 112 boys at Buckeye Local in 15:51.10, behind Bellaire’s Landen Perdue at 15:18.60. Cambridge’s Brayden Biddle placed fifth in 16:32.85 and Barnesville’s Linkoln Jendrusik seventeenth in 17:56.46. All four are assigned to the Division III district field next Saturday.
Barnesville’s girls finished second in Buckeye 8 scoring with 48 points, behind Bellaire’s 16 and ahead of Cambridge’s 75. Makayla Vitale led the Shamrocks in nineteenth overall. Barnesville’s Addy Reed and Cambridge’s Skye Craft finished twenty-third and twenty-fourth, separated by 4.50 seconds. Union Local’s Kelsey Mayberry and Ellie Greenwood followed in thirty-fourth and thirty-sixth.
Barnesville’s middle-school boys were runners-up to Martins Ferry in both championships, only six points behind in Buckeye 8 scoring. Dawson Hanse finished second and Quinn Stephen fourth, with Union Local’s Samuel Garcia fifth. Cambridge’s Simon Kanski and Johnny Jay Lyons finished ninth and tenth. In the girls race, Cambridge’s Sophie Callahan and Ivy Williams finished seventh and eighth, just ahead of Barnesville’s Maya Stephen in ninth. Barnesville was the OVCCL girls runner-up.
Read the complete Buckeye Local story. The MVL timer continues to label its results preliminary. This week’s result links and record notes accompany the detailed district outlook.