Cross country regionals

Noe leads Northview to regional title

Northview's Janelle Noe

TIFFIN — Northview's Janelle Noe slipped on the muddy ground dur­ing the first mo­ments of the Divi­sion I re­gional cross coun­try cham­pi­on­ship race on Satur­day at Boyer Hedges Park.

The Wild­cats' top run­ner found her­self lit­er­ally stuck in the mud.

But only for a mo­ment.

In­stincts and a drive to win kicked in, and Noe bounced up on her feet and be­gan to nav­i­gate through the muddy 5,000-me­ter course en route to cross­ing the fin­ish line first.

Noe not only won the race with a win­ning time of 18 min­utes, 32.38 sec­onds, the stand­out se­nior also led the Wild­cats to their sec­ond re­gional team cham­pi­on­ship in four years.

"This is re­ally ex­cit­ing, and it's like a re­ally big sur­prise to me," Noe said. "I'm just re­ally happy that our team can ac­com­plish this and be re­gional cham­pi­ons.

"I fell within the first 400 me­ters. I tripped, but I had to get back up and started go­ing. It was rough in the mud, and it was re­ally slip­pery. I kept roll­ing my an­kles, but I just had to fin­ish the race."

Northview claimed the team ti­tle with 73 points, and Bruns­wick fin­ished as re­gional run­ner-up with 122 points.

Northview se­niors Robin Foster and Ab­i­gail Masters placed sev­enth and ninth, re­spec­tively, to give the Wild­cats three fin­ishers among the top 10 run­ners. Foster crossed the fin­ish line in 19:09.37, and Masters was timed at 19:12.82. Mal­lory Small fin­ished 25th (19:54.88) and Rachel Audet 39th (20:07.63) to help Northview's cause.

Northview coach Jodie Smith con­sid­ered the Wild­cats' ef­fort per­haps their best as a team this sea­son.

"I was real im­pressed with what they did to­day," Smith said. "They ran fan­tas­tic on a very rough, muddy course. They pulled to­gether as a team, and they all did what they needed to do.

"We had three se­niors in the top 10, so how much bet­ter can that get."

Bay and North Roy­al­ton placed third and fourth with 123 and 165 points, re­spec­tively, to qual­ify for the state cham­pi­on­ships. Mag­ni­fi­cat placed fifth with 169 points, fol­lowed by Clay 173, Strongs­ville 183, Avon 209, Notre Dame Acad­emy 211, Breck­s­ville 224, An­thony Wayne 255, Per­rys­burg 282, Steele 309, Bowl­ing Green 329, Ash­land 342, and Whit­mer 388.

The top four teams and in­di­vid­u­als among the top 16 at re­gion­als qual­ify for state.

Clay ju­nior Erin Gyurke is re­turn­ing to the state com­pet­i­ton af­ter plac­ing sec­ond with a time of 18:42.38 and will run with team­mates Ha­ley Hess and Han­nah Hess, who placed 11th (19:16.06) and 14th (19:21.88), re­spec­tively.

Per­rys­burg ju­nior Tay­lor Mon­heim is also a state qual­i­fier af­ter fin­ish­ing fifth with a time of 18:58.57. Notre Dame Acad­emy fresh­man Steph­a­nie Sher­man qual­i­fied by fin­ish­ing eighth with a time of 19:12.20.

In Divi­sion II, Wau­seon soph­o­more Tay­lor Ver­not pulled away from a lead pack with about a mile re­main­ing en route to win­ning the race with a time of 18:55.88.

"I felt re­ally good dur­ing the race," said Ver­not, who ran third at re­gion­als as a fresh­man. "I felt strong, and I knew I had to keep push­ing my­self to get a good time and a good place."

St. Vin­cent-St. Mary's top five run­ners placed in the top 10 to lead the way to the team ti­tle with 27 points. Woo­dridge fin­ished a dis­tant sec­ond with 92 points, fol­lowed by CVCA with 103, Crest­wood 107, Na­po­leon 171, Wau­seon 173, Belle­vue 174, Van Wert 237, De­fi­ance 276, Lima Shawnee 289, Padua Fran­cis­can 292, Port Clin­ton 293, Co­lum­bian 334, Key­stone 420, Holy Name 421, and Buck­eye 437.

In Divi­sion III, Toledo Chris­tian's Delainey Phelps earned in­di­vid­ual re­gional run­ner-up hon­ors af­ter plac­ing sec­ond with a time of 18:41.06.

Phelps, a se­nior, kept Cold­wa­ter's Sarah Kan­ney within eye­sight for the en­tire race. How­ever, she couldn't quite close the dis­tance down the stretch, and Kan­ney led Cold­wa­ter to the D-III team ti­tle by fin­ish­ing first with a time of 18:33.06.

None­the­less, Phelps was pleased about her own ef­fort.

"This is pretty sweet," Phelps said, re­flect­ing on her best re­gional show­ing. "This is huge and re­ally im­por­tant to me."

Cold­wa­ter won the team ti­tle with 52 points, fol­lowed by de­fend­ing state cham­pion Lib­erty Center with 61, Lib­erty-Ben­ton 117, Spen­cer­ville 170, Fort Re­cov­ery 176, Toledo Chris­tian 178, Cr­est­view 225, Edger­ton 228, Kal­ida 238, Plym­ourth 248, Calvert 269, Hope­well-Lou­don 280, St. Mary CC 288, Elm­wood 303, Gib­son­burg 338, and Fairview 371.

LC's Brit­t­any At­kin­son, the de­fend­ing state cham­pion in­di­vid­ual win­ner, fin­ished be­hind Phelps for third place with a time of 18:53.57. LC team­mates Kelly Haubert placed fifth with a time of 19:20.45, while Paige Cham­ber­lain and Olivia Kundo ran 15th (20:28.65) and 16th (20:29.11), re­spec­tively. Rachel Pin­son fin­ished 31st (21:08.47).

"It's kind of dis­ap­point­ing where I ran to­day be­cause I didn't end up where I wanted to be," At­kin­son said. "I just know I'll have to go back to prac­tice and work my­self ex­tra hard to make my­self ready for state."

Lib­erty-Ben­ton's Madi Greiner fin­ished sixth with a time of 19:43.69 to lead her team back to state. Tay­lor Tho­mas ran 25th with a time 21:02.11, fol­lowed by Kate Baum­lein (26th, 21:02.80), Mack­en­zie Briggs (49th, 21:38.26) and Megan Saums (61st, 21:51.49).

Genoa fresh­man Carly Gose earned a trip to state af­ter fin­ish­ing 13th with a time of 20:17.39.

Con­tact Don­ald Em­mons at dem­mons@the­blade.com, 419-724-6302 or onTwit­ter @Dem­monsBlade