Bellefontaine finishes 2nd overall
Benjamin Logan’s boys cross country team captured its second straight Central Buckeye Conference Mad River division championship and its third title in four seasons Saturday during the league race at North Union High School.
“The guys performed even better than I expected,” said Ben Logan head coach Kevin Butler. “They really stepped up to the challenge. Northwestern and North Union ran really well last weekend, and I expected it to be a lot closer. I didn’t think we would win by the margin we did.”
Jonathan Alder, ranked 26th in the Division II state poll, held off Bellefontaine 47-54 to win the boys race and take the CBC Kenton Trail division title. Springfield Shawnee was third overall and third in the KT with 74 points.
“Our kids ran a great race,” said Bellefontaine head coach Ben Davis. “They had a better race than some of my regional championship teams in the past. In order to beat Jonathan Alder, we needed to run a perfect race. We ran an outstanding race, but it wasn’t quite enough. Of our 12 runners, 10 of them ran PRs and the other two were just seconds away. Our kids gave it everything they had today.”
Ben Logan was fourth overall and won the Mad River division title with 100 points. Indian Lake finished 10th overall and fifth in the MR with 246 points.
“Our guys put in the miles over the summer and have been consistent in their training to build up to this,” said Butler. “We talk a lot about doing the little things because when you do all of the little things, they add up to big things.”
Ben Logan’s championship race was sparked by Tucker Munz in fourth place with a time of 17:25, while Blake Rhoades turned in a 12th-place finish with a time of 17:39.
Other key finishes for the Raiders came from Tayte Williamson in 25th (18:01), Trevor Penwell in 30th (18:25) and Andrew Hughes in 31st (18:31), while Eli Rhodes came in 66th (20:45) and Yale Scheiderer finished in 70th (21:07).
Bellefontaine’s second-place overall finish was powered by six top-25 finishes.
The Chiefs’ Connor Skidmore placed second out of 97 runners with a time of 16:57 and Tony Stewart placed third with a time of 17:11.
“Connor ran a great race and Tony ran the fastest time of any freshman I’ve coached at Bellefontaine,” said Davis. “All of our kids dug deep and ran the best races they could run.”
The other top-25 finishers for BHS included Gannon Purcell in 11th (17:38), Justin Carper in 18th (17:49), Patrick Donnelly in 20th (17:53) and Gavin Wilson in 24th (17:58).
Making up the rest of the BHS squad were Ollie Moreland in 42nd (19:09), Seth Taylor in 67th (20:52), Noah Conner in 72nd (21:10), Nate Hardy in 82nd (21:49), Micah Woolf in 90th (23:10) and Alex Miller in 92nd (23:59).
For Indian Lake, Tony Cummins was 49th (19:48), Brody Parsell was 51st (19:56), Mason Beres was 55th (20:03), Jacob Huhn was 58th (20:11), Heath Wilson was 61st (20:25), Vincent Wilson was 74th (21:13) and Dawson Finfrock was 77th (21:34).
Bellefontaine, Ben Logan and Indian Lake all compete in the Division II district meet Saturday at Cedarville University.