The Commercial Review

Tribe runners don’t break, make it to state for fourth straight year

TIFFIN, Ohio — The Indians’ hearts started pounding faster, their muscles were tightening, blood pressure rising and breath was quickening.

Coaches and athletes alike were huddled around a few phones awaiting the results of the race.

The girls results crawled in after technical difficulties, only showing the results for the first 62 runners and no team scores.

The Indians knew the placements for their top three runners, but couldn’t calculate their own score or those of their competitors.

Tension was rising until finally, with a refresh of the page, there it was. The Indians finished sixth.

They’ll be running at state.

After 75 stressful minutes of waiting for the results to roll in, the Fort Recovery High School girls cross country team celebrated clinching its fourth consecutive state birth that it earned with a sixth-place finish at the OHSAA Division III Region 10 cross country meet at Hedges Boyer Park hosted by Columbian on Saturday. 

Joining the girls in Obetz will be Trevor Heitkamp, who was the only boy competing for Fort Recovery, as he finished 12th with a time of 16 minutes, 38.04 seconds.

“These kids are elated,” Tribe coach Christy Diller said. “We really wanted to get the job done, particularly for our seniors, and particularly for Ellie (Will) and Jenna (Hart), knowing that this was their chance to be able to do four in a row.

“So we really had a good day top to bottom.”

The girls team earned 220 points en route to sixth place while Midwest Athletic Conference rival Minster took first with 48 points. The top seven teams and 28 individuals earn a trip to the state meet at Fortress Obetz and Memorial Park on Nov. 4. The Indians edged out Patrick Henry by one point, while Parkway missed the cut with 253.

The fifth (Colonel Crawford), sixth and seventh place teams were all separated by only one point each. 

A technical error with the camera resulted in a delay for officials to tally and post results for the girls race.

The Tribe runners were able to distract themselves for a little while as they cheered on Heitkamp. Soon enough, though, they were back to nervously awaiting the results of their race.

“It was really hard to just sit there and wait,” Will said. “There was a time I didn’t think we made it. When we found out we did, it was one of the most exciting things ever.”

Along with the mental stress the girls went through, there was some physical stress as well. Hart has been in and out of the top five on the Indians’ lineup as she has dealt with shin splints throughout the season.

Hart fought through the race to be the Indians’ fifth scorer.

“That race was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done, to be honest,” Hart said. “It was really rough. …

“I just knew I had to push really hard in order for us to make it to state. I just kept going and kept picking one person off after another.”

With the 115th-place finish, Hart, along with Will who was 43rd, has competed and scored at the regional all four years of high school.

While Heitkamp didn’t have to wait long for his results, he faced his own mental and physical stress.

Prior to the race, he had to deal with the mental stress of warming up and preparing alone while the girls ran their race. Without any of his teammates with him, all he could do is try to calm his own nerves as he lined up.

He also came in a little bit under the weather physically which he felt after coming hot out of the gate.

“One hundred percent, God helped me through that race,” Heitkamp said. “There was a moment literally right after the mile, where I just got so overwhelmed that I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m qualifying if I feel like this,’ and just felt like the world was crashing down.

“Then I remembered, always before my races, I carry around a rosary with me. I just remembered suddenly, in my mind carrying that rosary, and that’s what pushed me through the rest of the race.”

Natalie Brunswick paced the girls, rolling into 19th place at the mile mark. She was able to hold it throughout a race that Diller described as both smart and smooth.

The 19:26.8 time carried her to what would have been an individual state berth if the team didn’t make it through.

The other two scores came from Makenna Huelskamp (55th, 20:46.33), who ran for the first time since Sept. 9, and Joelle Kaup (73rd, 21:14.12).

Also running for Fort Recover were Anna Roessner (122nd, 22:02.05) and Maddie Heitkamp (131st, 22:20.39).

Diller sang praises for Trevor Heitkamp and all seven girls. While she gave shout outs to everyone, she did point to her seniors, Trevor Heitkamp, Brunswick, Will and Hart.

“We spent a lot of time talking these seniors up this week” Diller said. “‘This is it. We don’t want this to be your last meet.’ They stepped up. We definitely rode on the backs of our seniors today.”