Cardinals, Wildcats win MAC titles

COLDWATER - Fort Recovery's Trevor Heitkamp cruised to an individual Midwest Athletic Conference title over New Bremen's Zach Wiedeman, but Wiedeman and the Cardinals walked away with the team title.

Wiedeman and two teammates made the top 10 as the Cardinals beat Marion Local by 17 points, while on the girls side, Minster took seven of the top 10 spots, including a second-straight individual victory by Maggie Hemmelgarn in her first race of the year, for a 50-point victory over Fort Recovery in Coldwater on Saturday.

New Bremen's win marked just its second MAC boys cross country title, 14 years after the Cardinals won their first in 2008.

"They went for it right from the gun," New Bremen coach Jason Barhorst said. "Quarter mile in, our whole pack was up there. It was pretty great to see."

Heitkamp took a narrow lead over Wiedeman in the opening stretch and pulled away from there, stretching a five-second advantage after the first mile to a 19-second lead after the second.

By the time they entered the stadium, Heitkamp was ahead by 30 seconds, and he finished in 16:16.94 with Wiedeman coming in at 16:47.73.

"He definitely knew that New Bremen and Marion would be keying off of him, and his plan was to make them work for it," Fort Recovery coach Christy Diller said with a laugh. "He definitely made them do that in that second mile."

"He would love to have an individual MAC championship," Barhorst said of Wiedeman. "Trevor Heitkamp is a great runner, they know each other quite well. But he knew he had to be in front of Minster and Marion's first and second guys on the team. He had to take care of that second spot first."

Minster's Ryan Halpin made a late run to overtake teammate Jack Grieshop for third by .23 seconds, and Marion's Noah Budde and Troy Stucke crossed the line in sixth and seventh. Patrick Bernhold helped the Cardinals' cause with a seventh-place finish, with Coldwater's Mason Ayers eighth and Josh Schoen ninth, and New Bremen's Dominic Shroyer rounded out the top 10.

It was the next two runners that made the biggest difference for the Cardinals, as Cole Powers and Gavin Spragg crossed the line 15th and 16th to round out the scoring. Second-place Marion saw its final two runners cross in 20th and 22nd, while Minster's fourth-place runner came in 18th and its fifth-place runner was 36th.

"They've been there all year long," Barhorst said. "It's proving what we see in practice, you knew all those guys could do it. We have a whole slew of other guys that could do it. We just need five guys who are going to have a great day, that's what we're going for. We had more than that, great day-wise."

Tyler Rowen was the top Parkway finisher with in 26th, Nolan Fullenkamp paced St. Henry in 38th, and Noah Holland led New Knoxville in 41st.

On the girls side, Hemmelgarn and teammate Taylor Roth were running in the pack to open the race and were 1-2 after the first mile. After mile two, Hemmelgarn had a one-second edge on Roth, with Fort Recovery's Natalie Brunswick five seconds back of the lead.

Brunswick ran down Roth, who held off Versailles' Meredith Barga down the stretch to claim third, but couldn't overtake Hemmelgarn.

Hemmelgarn ran the final 1.1 miles in 6:53 to stave off Brunswick for a five-second victory and a time of 19:20.76.

"She hadn't raced all year, so you don't know what's going to happen," Minster girls coach Jessie Magoto said. "She's just kind of feeling it out, but ran strong, and to see the other girls feeding off of her, that was cool."

"She showed up ready to race," Diller said of Brunswick. "She knows she can run with those Minster girls, and she did it today. She was very confident, she stayed aggressive through the whole race, which was good, and she just tracked them. She just needs to keep doing that, and it will eventually pay off. But just five second off Maggie, it should be a good confidence-boosting day for her."

After Barga crossed the line, it was all Minster. Maria Niekamp was fifth, followed by Annie Hemmelgarn in sixth and Chaney Cedarleaf in seventh to secure a resounding win. Ava Stammen and Morgan Ketner finished eighth and ninth individually and didn't factor into the scoring, along with Rachel Niekamp in 13th, Cameo Cedarleaf in 15th and Adrianna Kremer in 16th.

Niekamp, Annie Hemmelgarn, Chaney Cedarleaf and Stammen were running together through the second mile, making it all Minster in the first pack behind the leaders.

"They packed it in and ran strong," Magoto said. "They looked like they were having a good time, running fast."

New Bremen's Caroline Whitlatch ended the Minster streak with a 10th-place finish, followed by Fort Recovery's Jenna Hart and Ellie Will. The Indians were the runners-up in the team standings with a score of 72.

"I'm happy to have broken up that top, so at least it wasn't all Minster," Diller said. "They ran incredible today, but I was really happy with how our girls showed up. We've really been preaching not worrying about the times and just focusing on racing, and I think that's starting to pay off."

Amanda Barrett was the top Parkway finisher in 13th, with Ally Heath leading the way for St. Henry in 14th, Elise Schwieterman pacing Coldwater in 35th, and Josie Bruns the top Marion finisher in 44th. New Knoxville did not field a full team, but Ariyah Pfenning led the Rangers with an 18th-place finish.

Versailles swept the middle school championships, with four of the top boys five finishers and five of the top 10 girls. Benjamin Pitsenbarger won the boys' individual crown for the Tigers, while Fort Recovery's Makenna Huelskamp won the girls race with a time of 12:17.71.

District tournaments kick off next Saturday, with the majority of the MAC racing in Division III at Columbus Grove. Coldwater's boys will run in Division II, also at Columbus Grove, while both Versailles teams will head down to the Southwest region and start the tournament at VOA Park in West Chester.