The Van Wert County Courthouse

Tuesday, Mar. 19, 2024

Cougars, Lancers shine at WT Invite

Van Wert independent sports

HAVILAND — State ranked cross country teams from Van Wert (No. 13 in Division II) and Lincolnview (No. 9 in Division III) battled heat and humidity to finish 1-2 respectively at Tuesday’s Wayne Trace Invitational.

Jacob Wasson led the Cougars with a fourth place finish (17:55), followed by Gage Chiles (sixth, 18:27), Holden Reichert (eighth, 18:48), Hunter Sherer (ninth, 18:49), Gage Wannemacher (14th,19:22) and sixth man Noah Carter, who’s time broke a tie with the Lancers (21st, 20:09). Jacob Sealscott finished 31st with a time of 21:03.

“Noah’s performance was quite literally the difference maker as we would have tied Lincolnview 37 to 37, but won based on Noah’s race/place as our sixth man. Noah ran the 3rd best spread (0:45) on the team and passed 13 runners from mile one to the finish and six runners in the last mile,” Van Wert head coach Ryan Holliday said.

The Lancers were led by Alek Bowersock (second), Jacob Keysor (seventh), Joe Sadowski (12th), Devon Bill (16th), and Daegan Hatfield (29th). Rounding out the varsity was Sam Wolfrum (35th) and Austin Welker (50th).

“This was a different week for us,” Lincolnview head coach Matt Langdon said. “The boys were not scheduled to race tonight (Tuesday), but due to our meet being canceled on Saturday we chose to race in Wayne Trace’s invitational. It was a starting point, but due to the heat and the sloppy course, it is hard to tell just how fast the boys ran.”

“Hopefully, this will allow us to race better on Saturday now that we have one race behind us,” Langdon added.

On the girls’ side, Caylee Phillips finished second overall with a time of 21:15, while Rachel Spath finished 15th (24:39), as the Lady Cougars finished in the runner-up spot. Ali Gemmer finished 18th (25:11), Brianna Bebout 26th (26:52), Kirsten Dunning 28th (27:01), Shayna Dull 34th (28:00) and Hannah Kraner 55th (32:53).

Van Wert and Lincolnview will compete at the Columbus Grove Invitational on Saturday.

POSTED: 08/29/18 at 6:26 am. FILED UNDER: Sports