Girls CC earns fourth consecutive trip to state championships

The season will continue for Avon’s girls cross country team after Saturday’s regional meet. However, the boys weren’t as fortunate.

Led by senior Ava Melott, the Eagles placed second in a large field of 37 teams to earn their fourth consecutive trip to the state meet next week in Columbus. Of the 37 teams in the Division II race, 14 received votes in the state coaches poll that was released earlier in the week.

“It was a really strong field and a really big field,” said coach Justin Carroll. “The goal always was to qualify to the state meet, which we did. I feel like our pack continues to get better and stronger, and we’re looking forward to the state meet.”

The Eagles were hoping to use their pack running as a way to counter the upfront strength of Aurora, but the Eagles couldn’t offset the 1-9-11 finish of Aurora which scored 111 points to 183 for Avon. St. Joseph Academy was third at 208, followed by Westlake with 211.

As she has all season, Melott topped Avon by placing 16th with a time of 19 minutes, 3.0 seconds over the 5,000-meter course. She was followed by Brooke Tindera (25th in 19:31.1), Molly Suter (45th in 19:57.8), Madison Colaizzi (49th in 20:02.7), Lauren Kershaw (51st in 20:04.3), Momoka Tanaka (75th in 20:21.3) and Molly Pomfrey (82nd in 20:32.2).

Running in the Division I race, Avon’s boys needed to finish in the top five in order to return to the state meet where they placed 13th last year in Division II. The Eagles ran one of their better races of the season, but it was only good for 10th place with 238 points. Avon ran as a pack, as the gap from the first runner to the fifth was only 24 seconds, but the pack was too far back in the field.

“That’s what you always want to do is run as a pack,” said coach Matt Nortz. “I thought they did well with pack running today. It’s just the pack needed to be moved up a little bit more. I was happy with how Jared (Keressi) went out there aggressively. Maybe if our team could have hung on with him a little longer, that would have been the ticket. But, you know, that’s easier said than done.”

The top finisher for the Eagles was Nick Thompson, who was 37th with a 16:53.3 clocking. Keressi finished four places later with a time of 16:59.4 and Blaise Wieber was 46th in 17:03.3. The three seniors were backed by classmate Luke Fox (56th in 17:17.9) and freshman Liam Nobles (58th in 17:19.6). Rounding out the top seven were senior Caden Matthews (67th in 17:30.3) and junior Matthew Lochbihler (76th in 17:46.5).

“Overall, it was a great season,” Nortz said. “I’m sorry the boys didn’t make it down to the state meet, but that’s something that’s a part of life, right? We had a great week. Our boys are super close. They were positive. They knew that we were a long shot to make it, but they still believed that it was possible if they ran well. They ran good, but on a day like this, you have to run your best.”