Minster sweeps MAC field again

COLDWATER - The Midwest Athletic Conference meet was run on a cold, windy evening in Coldwater, much different than the hot and humid weather all these teams faced when they ran in the Lion's Invitational on this same course just one week ago.

Despite the change in weather, the results were the same as both the Minster boys and girls were once again the top MAC teams.

In the boy's race, Coldwater's Dusty Kuess improved on last season's second-place effort to win top honors. In the girl's race, Minster took the crown for the 13th straight year, with Wildcat sophomore Jessica Albers improving on last year's seventh-place finish to win the title.

The Minster girls continued their tradition of winning this event as expected, thanks to placing seven runners in the top 12 in the overall standings. Individually, Jessica Albers has been the best of the MAC female runners in the hot weather of the season, and won this race by 15 seconds despite the first real cool weather.

Albers improved from the Lions' event by 12 seconds.

"My time was a little better than last week on the same course," noted Albers, who admitted the change in weather was not necessarily to her liking. "I think I like running in the heat better."

The Versailles girls finished second in the overall standings, followed closely by Coldwater and Fort Recovery.

Minster was also favored to win the boys' race, and it met expectations by placing six runners in the top 15 places. The drama in this race was for the individual title, where Coldwater's Dusty Kuess, Minster's Kregg Olding and St. Henry's Doug Ranly had been fighting each other all year.

At the mile mark it was those three along with Minster's Joby Stechschulte and David McGowan, St. Henry's Dan Rex, New Knoxville's Adam Wierwille and New Bremen's Jeff Kremer fighting it out.

Kuess eventually stretched out a lead, and held off Olding for the win by four seconds.

Unlike Albers, Kuess welcomed the change in temperature.

"Last week I got too much of the heat on me so I slowed down. This week the weather was good," admitted Kuess, who also noted he would be fighting the same competition throughout the postseason. "Individually, I have to run with these same guys I ran with today all the way through state, so I can make it up on that podium."

The St. Henry boys finished in second place in the team standings, while New Knoxville finished just one point ahead of New Bremen to claim third place.

In the junior high races, the boys' team title went to Coldwater while Versailles' Sam Prakel took top individual honors. The girls' race provided the greatest excitement of the night as Minster and Versailles took 15 of the top 17 spots. When the scores were added up, both teams finished in a tie with 31 points. The championship was decided in Minster's favor when the Wildcats' sixth runner, Kayla Wuebker, crossed the line ahead of the sixth Tiger runner. Tammy Berger from Versailles easily won the race.