The Daily Standard
Story Archive
Celina's Elle Miesse set a new WBL cross country championship record to help the Bulldogs repeat as WBL champions.
Compiled by Gary R. Rasberry
Celina needed a dominate day to repeat as Western Buckeye League girls cross country champions.
And as they have much of the season, the Bulldogs got it, edging Ottawa-Glandorf 48-52 to repeat as champions at the league meet at Veterans Park in Wapakoneta.
It's the eighth title for the Celina girls, and the first back-to-back title finish since 2000 and 2001.
For the Celina boys, the battle to repeat in their own right for the first time in over 40 years was even tighter. In the event, a solid pack of Van Wert runners were able to push through and edge Celina 70-75 for the league title, with the Bulldog boys holding on to edge Shawnee 75-77 for second.
Celina Elle Miesse, who finished third as a freshman last season, did what she has done all season, win. Miesse got away from pack early and never looked back, finishing in 17:37.4, shattering the league meet record of 18:23.7 set last year by Kenton's Addi Manns, to become the first Bulldog individual champion since Kaylie Dameron in 2022.
Nearly 90 seconds later Sophie Gudorf next crossed the line in 19:07.1, moving up 20 spots from her 22nd-place showing last season. The pair earned first team All-WBL honors for finishing in the top 12.
"Elle is just she's like a unicorn of running. You don't, you don't get an opportunity," said Celina coach Jason Andrew, who earns the Coach of the Year award for guiding the Bulldogs to a league title "To coach that kind of talent, it's a blessing for me. And then to see Sophie improve at the level that she's been able to improve in just one year is incredible."
Bath's Penny Francis took third, Van Wert's Noelle Byrum was fourth and Wapakoneta's Kenzie Schneider finished fifth on her home course. Ottawa-Glandorf brought in their two runners in sixth and seventh with Lily Nienberg and Maci Maag, followed by Wapak's Olivia Hudnall, Bath's Morgan Schrock and Van Wert's Symphony Schuerman rounding out the top 10.
Claire Huwer was the next Celina runner in at 13th, Janelle Dameron was 15th and Amelia Miesse rounded out the five scoring runners in 20th. The trio earned honorable mention league honors for those runners finishing 13th through 22nd.
O-G had actually got all five scoring runners in before Amelia Miesse crossed, taking 12th, 14th and 16th, but sweeping the top spots clinched the title.
"We've been looking at O-G, obviously, and Van Wert. (They) were going to be the main focus teams for us," said Andrew. "We knew they were going to be the biggest challenge. So we spent a lot of time just kind of looking at the trends over the last five weeks: Who's dropping time, what's their PR? Then we just try to factor in. 'Okay, where do we need to put our girls within that mix to make the point total work out for us?' We had a strategy going in very similar to our plan. From last year, and once we figured out, you know, where we needed to be, the girls were really focused on. Okay, I gotta break up this pack, I gotta break up this pack, and so they had targets along the race."
Piper Reams led St. Marys with a 35th-place finish at the WBL Cross Country Championship.
St. Marys finished ninth in the girls standings with 260 points. Piper Reams led the Roughriders in finishing 35th. Paytin Wilker was 64th followed by Journie Rahrig (76th), Maci Ridgeway (82nd) and Emily Howell (83rd).
The Celina boys, which last won consecutive league crowns in 1983 and 1984, battled Van Wert and Shawnee for the top spot.
While Kenton's Wade Manns ran away with the individual title, finishing nearly 30 seconds ahead of Wapakoneta's Hans Sammetinger with a time of 15:39.5, the battle for the team title came down to placement.
Celina's Kaleb Dameron (4033) tries to get ahead of race-leader Wade Manns of Kenton.
The Bulldogs got their first two runners across first as Kaleb Dameron was third and Corbin Meyer was fifth. Van Wert's first three runners - Oliver Scott, Calvin Byrum and Alex Bauer - were eighth, 10th and 15th, respectively before Caleb Lehman finished 16th for Celina. The Cougars' fourth and fifth runners - Harrison Sloan (17th) and Quintin Parrish (20th) - came in before Celina's final two scoring runners, Isaac Helmer (22nd) and Beau Koester (29th), allowing Van Wert to sneak by for the team title.
"We had a similar plan with the boys as far as like breaking up certain packs," said Andrew. "The interesting thing with the boys is, I believe, we were probably simulated to finish fourth or fifth in this race today, but we knew coming into this race that our trends show that we are getting faster and we continue to drop time. And we knew we really believed we knew that we had a shot at winning."
Celina's Owen Harner (4034) runs with St. Marys' Vince Walter at the WBL championships.
St. Marys finished 10th in the team standings with 271 points. Gavin Luebke was 30 with Vince Walter 77th. Bryce Bertke (81st), Dominyk Wilkins (84th) and Nickolas Dietz (93rd) rounded out the scoring runners for the Roughriders.
The Celina Middle School made it a clean sweep of the ladies' titles, winning the middle school championship with 26 points. Harper Minnich and Talia McKirnan led Celina by placing second and third, respectively, behind Van Wert's Reese Miller. Alexa Smith and Alexys Caylor were sixth and seventh with Audrey Adams just missing the top 10 in 11th. St. Marys finished seventh with 163 points as Sophia Lynch was 27th and Lorna Piper 29th for the Roughriders.
Shawnee won the boys middle school title with 23 points. Celina was third with 88 points and St. Marys placed seventh with 186. Mason Kyler of Shawnee won the two-mile race in 10:17.3.
Celina's Benson Zimmerly finished sixth with Tucker Bellman taking 10th and Will Lovitt finishing 13th. Jacob Ruppert led St. Marys with a 21st-place finish. Aiden Bair placed 51st and Layne Dotson was 53rd.
Celina and St. Marys travel to the Findlay campus of Owens Community College this Saturday for district competition.
